LHSAA principals have tough decisions to make

Administrators of elementary and high schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans are incensed by a series of rule changes proposed by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s executive committee that will negatively affect the eligibility of many of their student athletes.

One that is most concerning is the removal of ACT 465, the 1997 law which allowed students to become immediately eligible at a private school in another school zone if it was part of a feeder system of similar lower-grade schools. Simply put, a student in a Catholic elementary school in Jefferson Parish would be eligible to participate in athletics at a Catholic high school in another parish under the same educational system.

Recognizing the impact that parochial schools have on the state of Louisiana, its legislature created ACT 465, which instructed the LHSAA to grant eligibility to student-athletes who naturally matriculate from a parochial elementary/junior high school to a high school in its system (diocese).

But in 2010, a Louisiana court subsequently held that the Legislature lacked the legal authority to make rules for the LHSAA, which is a private organization that receives no state money. Yet, the LHSAA recognized the merits of the act and opted to keep it as a regulation.

That could end with the press of a button on a mechanical device.

The LHSAA executive committee (EC) wants to disallow a student who attends a school outside his/her athletic attendance zone eligibility for one calendar year. The LHSAA principals will vote on this change at the body’s annual convention on Jan. 29-31. It needs a simple majority vote to become a bylaw.

An example: This would mean that a student living in Riverdale’s attendance zone would be eligible to compete in athletics only at Archbishop Rummel or Chapelle, but not at Jesuit, Mount Carmel, Brother Martin, Dominican, St. Augustine, St. Mary’s Academy, Cabrini or Ursuline for one calendar year after enrollment.

It no longer matters that the student may be the son or daughter of alumnus of any of the Orleans Parish Catholic high schools.

If this proposal passes, only Catholic or private schools that offer grades K-through-12 will not be affected. But, as we know, no  single-sex high school in the archdiocese has grades lower than 8th. Schools such as Holy Cross, Ursuline and the Academy of the Sacred Heart that offer grades K-12 are treated as separate schools, with an elementary (K-7) and a secondary (8-12) division.

Of the 95 rule changes proposed by the executive committee, most negatively affect non-public schools, particularly parochial. One, for instance, limits only schools classified as 1A and below to utilize 7th and/or 8th graders to compete on school teams. The change to this eligibility bylaw 1.22 would remove the eligibility of many students to compete on high school JV programs, thus rendering them unable to compete in sports at all.

A quick history lesson

From its founding in 1920, the LHSAA has been a principals’ organization. Each member school became a stockholder in the new sports body, with the principal acting as its CEO. As history has shown, the LHSAA’s membership was restricted to the state’s public schools through the first decade of its existence.

Then, in 1929, the association opened its doors, if not its arms, to admitting non-public schools to the fold. They included parochial and private schools, then later expanded to add magnet and charter schools.

As the LHSAA makes plans to celebrate its centennial in 2020-21, it appears that the association is trying to return to its grass roots, as one Baton Rouge attorney interprets the suggested rule changes for this year’s January convention.

According to Robert Tolsen, the business agenda shows that the LHSAA’s executive committee is trying to transfer the association’s power structure from the hands of the principals to its own authority at a time many LHSAA members are trying to find an avenue to bring its public and non-public school factions back into coexistence as a singular body.
How so? By giving itself the authority to make “unlimited” rules and regulations outside of the purview of the member-principals, notes Tolsen.

“In total, the executive committee unilaterally made 95 changes to the LHSAA Constitution, many effective immediately,” Tolsen noted. “The authority to make these changes outside of the legislative process historically reserved to the member principals was created and given to the executive committee through a substantive, unilateral change made to the LHSAA Constitution, Section 4.4.4.”

But, before panic sets in, all changes in the constitution must be ratified by the principals on Jan. 31.

The most troubling EC proposal expels all private schools from the LHSAA and requires any non-public school that wants to be in the LHSAA to reapply to the EC as a “special member.” But applications will not be considered until the EC’s summer meeting and would require a two-thirds vote to be approved. A 1.5 multiplier would be placed on the private school’s enrollment figure.

Ron Brocato can be reached at  rbrocato@clarionherald.org.