LHSAA wants full disclosure of financial aid offers

    Since admitting non-public schools into their fiefdom in 1929, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association always has been an organization whose majority public school principals have devoted hours dreaming of ways to suppress the success of the 85 private and parochial schools that now comprise about 22 percent of the membership.
    Because these schools charge tuition, they have to market their virtues to attract new students to replace those graduating.
    Catholic schools have a great advantage in this area because a large number of parents want their children to receive a good, Catholic education in a healthy social environment and are willing to pay for that opportunity.
    Schools provide options for  the many Catholic families who cannot afford to pay full tuitions. These options may include some form of financial aid.
    Many public school principals are under the impression that these private schools are using financial aid to “buy” the best athletes.    But history is drenched with several schemes hatched by public school principals to “level the playing field,” their favorite catch line.
    But this new proposal surprisingly is not an idea born in the minds of the publics. It was devised by the LHSAA’s Non-public School Committee, chaired by Executive Committee member David Federico, principal of Ecole Classique School.
    “We’ve been working on it for two years,” Federico said.
    The committee included principals and athletic directors from non-public schools and two principals from public schools.
    The proposal they drafted was also approved by the Schools Relations Committee.
The LHSAA proposal
    The proposal states that financial assistance must be totally unrelated to a student’s athletic interest, potential or performance; so far, so good. But it goes on to read: “The school must keep detailed records of school-based financial assistance provided to each student. This includes the report of the student’s financial need as determined by the school’s financial aid guidelines.”
    And. . . “The school must make all records available to the Executive Director or his/her designee for inspection upon request. Failure to provide records upon request shall render the student(s) ineligible for participation in athletic contests until the records are made available.”
   The proposal further calls for disclosure of the number of financial aid students who are and are not involved in athletics, the number who are male and the number who are female, and the total dollar amount of financial aid awarded to students who participate in athletics and to those who do not.
    This would appear to be  a clear violation of the right of confidentiality between the school and parents of prospective and current students. But Federico tells us the proposal has been checked thoroughly by the LHSAA’s legal counsel and he feels it would stand up in a court of law.
  I asked former Archbishop Hannan principal John Serio if he felt this had any chance of being approved. Serio today is Head of Schools at Kehoe-France, where he administers its Metairie and northshore campuses.
    As Hannan’s principal until Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Meraux campus, Serio built a first-class program, both academically and athletically, from the ground up. He had more than $2 million in an endowment fund in 2005. The school has moved to Goodbee without Serio.
    Serio has interviewed for the open position of president at De La Salle. “This is a program I know I can turn around,” he said. “De La Salle is in a great location and could have a bright future of growth.”
    As all Catholic schools do, Archbishop Hannan offered financial aid to some degree to athletes and non-athletes alike. His take on this proposal was, “It won’t hold up.”
    Serio said it cuts into the same privacy issues that led to its failure the last time the LHSAA offered the proposal. “I understand where they are coming from. It’s the frustration of principals playing by the rules toward those who are not. But in penalizing people who are not playing by the rules, you will burden those with privacy issues and cause a lot of paperwork and legal concerns.
    “If the head of a school is committed to violating rules, he can. If I would have wanted a kid (whose family could not afford full tuition), I could have gotten him in school without going through financial aid. There are people out there who will provide the money.”
    That was never the way Serio or other principals in the Archdiocese of New Orleans run their schools. I cannot, however, vouch for principals or headmasters of other private schools.
    “As a principal, I know the rules,” Serio said. “But I never turned down a kid at Hannan. My kids worked, but not for coaches.”
    Serio cited four-time All-State running back Jeff Sanchez, who went on to play for Tulane.
    “Jeff worked off his financial aid by cutting grass on campus every summer,” Serio said. “I lost kids to schools that had no work associated with financial aid, and I lost kids who wouldn’t do the work necessary to justify the help we gave them.”
    Federico, an administrator I’ve known and respected for years and whose own school charges tuition, said the proposal should pass based on the majority of public school principals who are in favor of it.
    He said the intent was not to pry into schools’ financial records unless there is a question lodged by another LHSAA member school.
    “It’s not about naming names and making records public,” he said. “The idea is to make sure all schools are accountable.”
    Financial aid is important to most blue-collar families who want their children to receive Catholic (or private) school educations but who cannot keep up with the rising costs of tuition. I firmly believe their financial situations are a matter of privacy between them and the school’s administration and should not be exposed to the prying eyes of anyone else.
    If the LHSAA is looking for percentages of athletes and non-athletes, the number of male students compared to female receiving financial aid, that’s well and good. It’s just numbers. But if an investigator wants specifics on individuals, it could have serious legal ramifications.   
    Ron Brocato may be reached at [email protected].