Elephant in the room — The metaphorical elephant represents an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about. The metaphorical elephant in the room

(7-3-23) The Toledo Catholic schools will all start the school year playing in the Central High School League, a Detroit, Michigan area private school conference. The schools were all left out in the cold when the Three Rivers Athletic Conference (TRAC) public schools all bolted.

Lima Central Catholic has been an independent for over 10 years after the Northwest Conference (NWC) asked them to leave in part because they won two many conference titles. LCC would like to rejoin the conference who now needs two new members…but they are out in the cold. The Midwest Athletic Conference snubbed the T-Birds

According to a MAC History story...Before the start of the 1999 fall season, league officials entertained adding Versailles, Sidney Lehman (Catholic), and Lima Central Catholic to the league. Following a vote, Versailles was the only school accepted, and they began competition in the fall of 2001.

Those are just some examples in the Stateline area of the battle between public and private schools. Public schools complain about the voucher system for private schools, while the private schools say that open enrollment helps the public schools.

So what is being done to solve some of these issues…competitive balance has not given the results either side is happy with. Some of the reasons for shutting out schools from membership are not based on issues that make sense and some are based on past relationships and situations.

The one thing to remember is that the student-athletes are the ones that suffer in these situations.

Here is what the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) is doing to help mediate the situation.

NOTHING

One state, Illinois, has decided to at least get the two sides together to discuss what can be done.

From the June Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Board of Directors meeting

The Board approved a recommendation to form a new IHSA advisory committee whose aim will be to share perspective between public schools and non-boundaried schools in hopes of shaping future IHSA policy and rules that provides greater equity to both.

Below clarifies what describes an Illinois non-boundaried school and what they face in the IHSA—

IHSA By-Law 3.170 requires a 1.65 multiplier be applied to the enrollment of every non-boundaried school. Waivers of the 1.65 multiplier are granted to individual sport and activity programs on a two-year basis.

In Illinois there are two forms of non-boundaried schools…private schools and charter schools.

A private school superintendent in Illinois once said…

Being a private school in Illinois…is like being a Republican in Chicago

Will the Illinois committee be successful, hard to tell…but it is a step in the right direction.

Updated from (7-6-23)

Matt Troha, Illinois High School Association Assistant Executive Director

No committee invites have gone out yet, but we have received a lot of interest. I think Craig Anderson plans to send those invites out early this fall once school starts back up and aims for their first meeting to occur shortly thereafter.

It will be a new group obviously, so the mission and scope of their work will change and evolve, but how we currently envision it is that they would serve as a sounding board on IHSA issues (providing perspective on both sides) in hopes that we can create more common ground between the two groups. I’d imagine at some juncture they will likely review IHSA rules as well and provide proposals for changes that they believe could be beneficial for all schools.

Ok…there are exceptions…

After ignoring and not wanting to add LCC the NWC is in talks with a private school, Delphos St. John’s of the Midwest Athletic Conference (MAC)

The Three Rivers Conference (TRC) was founded in 2019 two of the eight charter members are private schools…Lehman Catholic and Troy Christian.

Wisconsin has a Conference Realignment Task Force – The Board of Control has the authority to take action about a reasonable conference affiliation and relationship for member high schools. Reasonable conference affiliation and relationship with member high schools may include total movement of member schools, sport specific relief, and/or scheduling relief.