After much debate and delay, Tennessee's public-private school issue may finally take another step today toward being resolved in a way that satisfies both sides.
The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association's Legislative Council, which sets the rules for the state's high school athletic teams, has a specially called meeting today at 2 p.m. EDT at the DoubleTree Hotel in Murfreesboro to vote on seven proposed changes designed to answer the decades-old debate.
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Bernard Childress, executive director of the TSSAA.The proposals came from the association's staff, but TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress declined to comment on them until after today's meeting.
In mid-July, by a 5-4 vote, the council closed the door on a proposal to split completely all public and private schools into separate divisions but did leave open the potential for change on a smaller scale, which is what will be voted on today.
According to one TSSAA source, the biggest concerns that will be addressed by the proposals are student employment, more commonly known as work study, as well as tougher recruiting rules and tuition for athletes' siblings.
Student employment, or work study, is used by schools that charge tuition. It is the practice of allowing a student-athlete or a member of his or her immediate family, other than a full-time certified teacher or classified employee, to work for the school to help pay tuition. Under the new proposal, any work study program would be considered part of a financial-aid package and any school continuing to use it would be required to play in Division II.
Recruiting has been an equally hot issue for both public and private school athletic programs. As part of the proposed new recruiting rules, the TSSAA would more clearly define transfers and coaching links. Under the proposal, if a student transfers into a new school where an "athletic coaching link" existed in the past 12 months, that student would be ineligible for 12 months at all levels the sports in which the link was present.
Links include attendance at an open gym or camp (and then transferring); playing on a non-school (independent) or summer sports team (such as AAU), and then transferring to that coach's school; as well as transferring to a school where a former coach has just been hired and transferring into a school where a former or current personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach is employed.
The proposed changes could force some of the state's 24 private schools that currently compete in Division I to be moved to Division II, which allows schools to offer need-based financial aid to athletes. The changes also could force some public schools that accept out-of-county athletes who pay tuition to play in Division II.
The council could choose to adopt all of the proposals or just some of them, and any change would not go into effect until the next classification period, which begins with the 2017-18 school year.
At the heart of the debate is the longstanding perception by public schools that private schools have an unfair competitive advantage. The current proposals are aimed at helping smaller public schools, since private schools compete against public schools only in the four smallest classifications in football and the two smaller classes in all other sports.
Currently 46 private schools compete against each other in D-II, while 24 other private schools, mostly in the smaller classifications, still compete in the public-school division and must tolerate having their enrollment multiplied by 1.8, the highest in the nation, to do so.
Only four states currently divide high schools sports teams based along public-private lines - Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and Tennessee. This would be the third tweak to the public-private debate in Tennessee over the past 18 years. Division II was created in 1997 and the multiplier was implemented in 2003.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.