October 20, 2011

OHSAA Board of Directors Meeting Highlights

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio High School Athletic Association Board of Directors met Thursday morning in Columbus for its September meeting. The following are highlights from the meeting. The complete set of meeting minutes will be posted at OHSAA.org at a later date.

• Based on data received from a survey with member school principals this fall, the Board accepted a recommendation from the OHSAA’s Competitive Balance Subcommittee that no changes be made to the current system used to assign high schools to divisions for OHSAA tournaments. Last May, the membership voted down a referendum proposal that would have allowed the OHSAA to use a new formula to assign schools to divisions. The formula, if approved, would have taken into account the school’s enrollment along with three factors, including how students are obtained (boundary factor), a socioeconomic aspect and success in postseason play during the last four years. The Competitive Balance Subcommittee will reconvene in April 2012, but no proposal is expected to be made for member schools to vote on during the May 2012 referendum voting period. Also of note, the subcommittee strongly supports the OHSAA’s decision to form a Division I Committee, which will study possible solutions to the wide disparity in enrollment between the smallest and largest Division I schools that occurs within the Association’s tournament structure.

• Eight member schools were recently issued sanctions for committing infractions. The list of schools, along with a description of their infractions and sanctions, will be included in the meeting minutes posted later at OHSAA.org, but media members may obtain the list earlier by emailing Tim Stried, OHSAA Director of Information Services, at tstried@ohsaa.org.

• The Board accepted a list of 30 schools that have been honored by the OHSAA’s Sportsmanship, Ethics and Integrity Committee for sportsmanship. Eleven schools were named as having met the ‘Respect the Game Challenge,’ while 19 schools also were honored with the Harold A. Meyer Award. The OHSAA will post a separate press release on OHSAA.org next week with details and the list of schools.

• The Board approved the winter sports tournament regulations for basketball, bowling, gymnastics, ice hockey, swimming and diving and wrestling. The tournament regulations will be posted on each sport’s webpage at OHSAA.org.

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