The present way to classify high schools in Ohio is by the number of students walking the halls of your school 9-11 every other fall. It is an old and antiquated way to determine divisions for competitive interscholastic sports. The theory behind it was the larger the pool of students you have, the more potential athletes you have.
This system has been in place since the beginning. This was before the concept of mainstreaming, inclusion, open enrollments, vouchers, and “academies” or tech schools. Students who were formally provided educations in “special” schools are now all part of the public school system. These students no longer attend separate schools and are now counted into the general pool of potential athletes at their “home” school. Although some of these students do participate in interscholastic programs, most do not. This is a big change from twenty years ago.
Public Law 94-142 (Education of All Handicapped Children Act) also known as, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires all public schools to provide a free and appropriate education. The fact is not all schools in Ohio are under this requirement. Only public schools are required to accept every student that applies. This alone is reason enough to justify some tweaking of the current classification system that the OHSAA uses to determine divisions.
There have been proposals to separate public from private, and the most recent competitive balance proposal that was recently defeated by a narrow vote. Separating public from private schools is not a viable answer. There has been some movement to “level the field” by open enrolment programs. However there still is work to be done and none of the proposals addressed any of the “big school” problems”
A system must be developed that will take in consideration the changes that have happened over the past several years to the school systems in Ohio. I would suggest the following may be a good starting point to try to address some of the issues that are currently perceived by most as a problem in Ohio.
A weighted system that is easy to understand and verify would be the best way to establish size classifications for interscholastic competition. Schools could be placed in four categories: urban open and urban selective, rural open and rural selective. Each would be assigned a weighted factor. The most weight should be placed on urban schools with selective admission standards. The least weighted should be schools in rural areas with open admission standards.
The number of students on an IEP at each school should be a factor, and can be incorporated into the system. The fewer percentage of IEP students, the more weighted is added.
All schools should be placed in the following categories.
Urban with selective admission- School is located in an urban area and is selective by admission standards or space issues.
Rural with selective admission- School is located in a rural area and is selective by admission standards or space issues.
Urban open admission- School accepts all students with no restrictions.
Rural open admission. - School accepts all students with no restrictions.
Urban and Rural Classification
The Census Bureau classifies as "urban" all territory, population, and housing units located within an urbanized area (UA) or an urban cluster (UC). It delineates UA and UC boundaries to encompass densely settled territory, which consists of:
- core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile and
- surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile
The Census Bureau's classification of "rural" consists of all territory, population, and housing units located outside of UAs and UCs. The rural component contains both place and nonplace territory. Geographic entities, such as census tracts, counties, metropolitan areas, and the territory outside metropolitan areas, often are "split" between urban and rural territory, and the population and housing units they contain often are partly classified as urban and partly classified as rural.
- There should be an “open” division consisting of the statically largest high schools and include any school that chooses to compete in this division. This division will be a smaller number of schools than presently exist.
- There should be a division for only the statically smallest schools. Any school that has a selective admission policy either public or private should not be eligible for this division. This division will be a smaller number of schools than presently exist. Any school could apply for a two year waiver.
- The rest of the schools should be evenly divided into four equal divisions, thus keeping the current six division structure. Schools would be assigned based on size after calculating weighted factors.
All information needed is already available. The OHSAA would be responsible to determine how much weight to apply to the different factors. There would not be any weighed factors on past tournament success. All schools would keep their classification for two years, same as they currently do. It would not be perfect but it is a step in the right direction.
Fire away!
