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OHSAA Contact – Tim Stried, Director of Media Relations - [email protected]

 

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio High School Athletic Association member schools have passed all 13 proposed revisions to the OHSAA Constitution and Bylaws. The OHSAA’s annual referendum voting period was from May 1 through May 15 and ended at 4 p.m. on Thursday. Each member school has one vote on each referendum item, which is cast by the high school principal.

 

OHSAA Constitution Article 8-1-9 requires every member high school to submit a ballot.

 

All 13 issues were placed on the ballot per the approval of the OHSAA Board of Directors. More information about this year’s referendum issues and complete results of the voting are available at https://www.ohsaa.org/School-Resources/referendum-voting.

 

The approved Bylaw and Constitution changes will go into effect August 1, unless noted otherwise. A simple majority of votes cast by member school principals is required for a proposed amendment to be adopted.

 

In addition to voting for the referendum issues, member school principals had the opportunity to vote for representatives to fill expiring positions on their respective OHSAA District Athletic Boards, with terms beginning August 1, 2025. The district athletic board election results can be found at: https://www.ohsaa.org/about/districtboards

 

The OHSAA, as defined by its Constitution, is a voluntary, unincorporated, and nonprofit membership organization. The organization regulates interscholastic athletic competition for its member schools, consisting of 817 high schools and 744 7th and 8th grade schools.

 

This amendment will require schools to sponsor at least one recognized sport per season (currently two required), and a total of six throughout the school year to continue membership in the association. Additionally, this amendment updates penalties associated with failure to fulfill annual vs. seasonal obligations:

-Not offering a total of 6 sports during a given year: Ineligible for all postseason participation the following school year (probation).

-Not offering at least one sport during a season: Ineligible for postseason participation during that season the following school year.

 

Creates new language to cover the situation when one OHSAA district athletic board has an expiring board position and an unexpired position (interim) in the same classification at the same time. If this occurs, the appropriate high school principals would vote for their top two candidates. The candidate with the most votes would choose which position he/she would serve (either the longer, expiring term or the shorter, unexpiring term). The candidate with the second¬ most votes would fill the other position.

 

This exception will allow schools in the sports of bowling, cross country, golf, swimming & diving, track & field and/or wrestling to request an assignment into the higher division if both genders of the sport are not initially assigned to the same division.

 

This exception will allow students who live outside a public school district where they attend high school to be counted as Tier 1 students if they attended a terminal non-public elementary school (i.e. ends after grade 8) that is physically located within the public school’s district, and there was a Superintendent’s Agreement in place which permitted these non-resident, non-public school students to play 7/8 grade sports at the public school where the non-public school is physically located.

 

This modification removes the exception created for private school systems which use geographic boundaries to assign students to attend certain high schools. With the 2019 change in the feeder school option (12.5 mile radius), this exception is no longer being utilized.

 

This modification amends language addressing how students receiving home instruction can be eligible for athletic participation at non-public member schools. This will permit any class taken by the home educated student to count toward this partial enrollment requirement as long as the class is taken at the school’s physical location and the class counts towards graduation.

 

This modification removes current Exception 7 and replaces it with a new exception which will permit the Executive Director's Office to grant eligibility to a student when a non-relative to obtains custody of that student when their parents move outside of Ohio so long as the student has been enrolled in the same district/system for at least three years and the custody arrangement has been in place for at least one year.

 

This modification amends the enrollment requirement period within Bylaw 4-6-2, Exception 6, for a student whose parents live outside of Ohio while the student attends an Ohio parochial school. The modification changes the review period from 4th grade through 8th grade to 6th grade through 8th grade. Further, the language clarifies that such a student must matriculate directly into an Ohio parochial high school, and maintain enrollment in that system of education, to continue to utilize this exception to be eligible under the residency bylaw.

 

This modification adds language which clarifies that once a transfer student’s former school team is eliminated from the OHSAA tournament, that student’s “sports season” would be considered completed. Any transfer to a different school after that season would result in a normal transfer consequence the following season (subject to an exception being met), regardless of the number of contests the new school team may have remaining.

 

This modification removes all the “priority school” references and changes applicable references to "EdChoice Schools." This will allow students who attend a school listed on the EdChoice School list to transfer to a different school and restore full athletic eligibility, as long as all other criteria of the exception are met.

 

This modification changes the “look back” period for a student who has been previously enrolled in the same system of non-public education at the high school into which the student is transferring. If that student meets the requirements of the exception and has shown a previous commitment to that system of education, the OHSAA will consider what system of education the student attended continuously between 6th and 8th grade, rather than the current regulation which looks at the 4th through 8th grades.

 

This modification moves current Exceptions 5 and 9 from Bylaw 4-7-2 to an updated Bylaw 4-7-5 and moves the language from current Bylaw 4-7-5 to Bylaw 4-7-2, new Exception 5. Remaining exceptions within Bylaw 4-7-2 will be renumbered accordingly.

Further, this modification changes the current Exception 5 and 9 language to ensure the exceptions/provisions are more consistent with one another. Changes include: a. Removing the prohibition of either provision for seniors (currently only in Exception 5) b. Removing an athletic motivation assessment (currently only in Exception 5).

 

This exception for an intra-district/system transfer will allow the Executive Director’s Office to restore the eligibility of a student who is a victim of adult criminal behavior and, as a result of this documented action, transferred to a different school within the same district/system in which they have been enrolled. The requirements of this exception will mirror the inter-district Adult Criminal Behavior transfer exception (Bylaw 4-7-2 Exception 13).