Proposal would split between private/public school teams

Trinity Christian Academy and Jackson Christian are the only private schools west of the Tennessee River that continue to compete against public schools for district, region and state championships in athletics.

University School of Jackson, Sacred Heart of Jesus and the private schools concentrated in the Memphis area have chosen to compete against other private schools for those championships.

A proposal expected to be considered by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) this summer would force all private schools to compete only against each other for district, region and state championships.

"If that's what happens eventually, then we'll accept it," said Jackson Christian Athletic Director Scott Gatlin. "But that's not in our best interests, and I don't think that would be in the best interests of the TSSAA."

TCA Athletic Director Ken Northcut said his school and its fans prefer to compete against public schools in and around Madison County.

"We've got history with public schools around here," he said. "We have rivalries already established. We have no desire to play all of our district or region or postseason games in Memphis or Nashville."

The proposal hinges on a perception among many public school coaches and athletic directors that private schools have an unfair advantage, even though an enrollment multiplier is applied to private schools that can force them to compete against larger public schools.

The debate, which has simmered for decades, raises questions about the enrollment multiplier, travel budgets, open enrollment policies at public schools and the financial aid practices at private schools.

Ultimately, the decision would affect the 23 private schools across the state that continue to compete in the TSSAA's Division I public school classification. The 46 other private schools compete against each other in what is known as Division II.

Level playing field

TSSAA Executive Director Bernard Childress has heard the debate about public and private schools for years.

"We don't see it as a private-public issue anymore," he said in an interview last year. "It's an issue of a level playing field. We always want to create fair competition among member schools, and one of the primary objectives of that initiative as a whole is, what exactly is a level playing field?"

On two occasions the debate about splitting public and private schools has led to compromise: When the multiplier of 1.8 for student enrollment for private schools was established in 2000 and when Division II was created for private school competition in 1997.

If TCA and Jackson Christian were forced into Division II they would each have fewer schools to compete with for state championships, perhaps improving their chances for a top finish. But their travel — likely to Shelby County — would increase for district and regional competition and could take them across Tennessee for state championship qualifying games.

Gatlin, Jackson Christian's athletic director, and Northcut, TCA's athletic director, say their schools want to stay in the public school division to save on their travel budgets, and they're both willing to compete within the guidelines set by the TSSAA.

Both schools are in a district with Adamsville, Madison, Middleton, Riverside and Scotts Hill for sports such as basketball, baseball and softball. In the new football alignment, both teams are in a district with Adamsville, McKenzie, Gibson County and Halls.

Jackson Christian competed in the public school division until 2009, when it moved to the private school division. It moved back to the public school division in 2013.

"Our fans and our teams in some instances didn't enjoy traveling to Memphis every other week, or more often, for games," Gatlin said. "We like where we are now and playing against the teams we play against now in District 15-A."

Trinity Christian Academy has always competed in the public school division.

Financial aid

For private schools, there are two main differences in regulations between playing in public school or private school divisions:

•The 1.8 multiplier is applied to enrollment to play in the public school division, which can push them into competition with larger schools.

•Schools that play in the private school division are permitted to offer need-based financial aid to student-athletes.

USJ football coach Mickey Marley said many people misunderstand need-based financial aid.

"Everybody thinks it's scholarships, and we're offering scholarships to come play for USJ," Marley said. "That's not what it is."

Marley said all prospective students may apply for need-based aid, and the applications are evaluated by an outside organization. Whether the student is an athlete is not part of the equation, he said.

"Once we receive that information back from the organization if the student has qualified for need-based financial aid, such aid may or may not be awarded based upon availability of funds the school may or may not have," Marley said. "Some independent schools have funds set aside in their budget for need-based financial aid. Some do not. Availability and size of funds depends on each individual school."

Northcut, of TCA, said private schools in Jackson are too new to have much money set aside for need-based financial aid, which could place them at a disadvantage competing against relatively older private schools.

"There are schools in this state who've been around 70, 80 even 100 years and have built up funds for financial aid when they're allowed to offer it ...," Northcut said. "None of us have been around long enough to build up anything like that."

Gatlin, of Jackson Christian, said the Eagles never offered athletes need-based financial aid when the school competed in the private school division.

"We don't have a lot of money to do that either," Gatlin said. "When we returned to Division I, we had no changes to make in financial aid."

The multiplier

In 1999, the Alabama High School Athletic Association became the first state athletic association to assign a multiplier to private school enrollment figures for classification purposes.

Tennessee adopted a multiplier one year later. Alabama's multiplier is 1.35, meaning a private high school that has 100 students will be counted as having 135 students. Tennessee's multiplier is 1.8, which is the highest in the country. A private school can move up a maximum of one class due to the multiplier.

Multipliers were implemented after a string of state championships by private school teams in various sports.

Gatlin, of Jackson Christian, said he's OK with a multiplier for private schools.

"We're a private school that brings students into our school by different rules, so a multiplier is understandable to me," Gatlin said. "I don't see the point of having it as large as the one in Tennessee is. Maybe we could get that lowered some, but I think it's fair to have one."

Marley said he doesn't think the multiplier should only be applied to private schools.

"Some public schools have geographic school district limitations and some are open enrollment that charge a fee to attend, which to me sounds like a tuition and should qualify them as tuition schools," Marley said. "Seems to me that open enrollment, magnet, charter, etc., schools should be multiplied if a multiplier is to exist."

Just private schools?

Administrators from Lewis County and Trousdale County proposed splitting public and private schools for post-season play last year. Administrators at Trousdale County and Lewis County did not respond to several messages seeking comment for this story.

When the proposal was made, Childress, executive director of the TSSAA, urged caution in a meeting with members of the TSSAA Board of Control.

"We do not need to make a knee-jerk decision," Childress said. "First of all, we need to specifically identify what the issue is and not the perceived problem. Once it is identified, we need to address the issue in a way that keeps our organization and its vision intact.

"If a level playing field is what we are trying to accomplish, our statistical analysis indicates that the problem is more of a boundary vs. non-boundary school issue," he said. "We have researched over 16,000 postseason contests held in all sports sanctioned by TSSAA. Those numbers clearly indicate that when schools with open enrollment (private, charter, city, magnet, system-wide) play against schools with specific zone lines, the open enrollment schools win over 60 percent of the time."

Open enrollment public schools are classified as schools that allow any student admission from outside their districts as long as there is space available.

The Jackson-Madison County school system is finishing its second year with open enrollment. Students in McNairy County schools can choose to go to Adamsville or McNairy Central high schools. Many public schools allow students from outside their district — even from another county — to attend as long as they pay an out-of-district fee and as long as space allows.

Childress said public school representatives who think private schools have an unfair advantage might next target schools in open enrollment districts, magnet schools or charter schools.

Other options

The private-public split was discussed at an athletic directors' conference in April attended by administrators from school systems across the state. Those in attendance said other ideas were also discussed, including a system in which schools would be classified based on their history of success.

Dan Black is director of Bradford Special Schools and president of the TSSAA Legislative Council, the committee that will ultimately vote on the private-public school proposal. He attended the athletic directors' meeting.

Black said the "success factor" plan, would require teams successful on the state level for a certain number of years to move up a class and compete against larger schools. Indiana and Ohio use similar systems.

"There's a lot of questions about that one, like if a school's men's basketball team has a few good years and moves up, either the women's team has to move up with them even though they may not be very good or they stay in a different class," Black said. "That would create a lot of problems I think."

Boys' and girls' basketball teams typically travel together and play opponents from the same school on the same night.

Greg Scott, the Milan athletic director and a member of the TSSAA Board of Control, shares Black's concern about such a plan.

"What if my boys' basketball team wins state two or three years in a row and has to move up to AAA," Scott said. "Well my girls' team either has to move up with them even though they couldn't get out of district in AA or we're in a situation where the boys' team is playing maybe Henry County and our girls are playing Westview.

"Well what's that going to do for the schedules at Westview and Henry County? That one could create more problems than it solves in my opinion."

Another scenario discussed would have public and private schools compete together in the regular season but split for post-season tournaments. Details about how pairings would be determined for tournaments haven't been worked out.

Northcut, TCA's athletic director, said another option discussed during a meeting of private school administrators last year focused on athletic department budgets.

"California uses something like it, and there's a small private school that only has a couple hundred students but a lot of wealthy athletes send their children there," he said. "They're a small school, but they're competing with schools who have thousands of students and beating them like a drum.

"I think that's more of an apples-to-apples situation because facilities can have a big effect on a team's success," Northcut said.

Decision time

The TSSAA's Legislative Council is expected to meet this week to learn more about how the proposed split between public and private schools would work. Members of the council will then take the information back to their member schools for feedback.

A vote by the Legislative Council would likely happen in July.

Black, the director of Bradford Special Schools and president of the Legislative Council, represents District 8 on the council, which takes in rural West Tennessee north of Interstate 40.

He said it's up to each of the council's nine members to decide how to vote.

"Some school representatives at district meetings who elect council members expect them to vote according to the majority desire of their member schools," Black said. "I think some people expect some committee members to vote in favor of what's best for that council member's individual school.

"I think at the core of what we do when we meet to vote — whether it's this or anything we vote on — we need to do what we think is best for the entire state. There's no one thing in just about any situation that will be 100 percent positive for every school in the state because we have so many."

Black said the majority of public schools across the state would probably prefer a total split, but that doesn't mean a split is a foregone conclusion.

"We could get more information between now and the vote that will lead the committee members to decide a split isn't in the best interest for everybody," Black said. "I think whether the split happens or not, the vote will be close with a lot of debate and discussion going on before we make a decision."

He said he doesn't know how the vote will come out, but he's sure it will be split.

"It would be great if we could find one answer that would be equally good for everybody, but nobody in this state has seen it," Black said. "Everybody can decide which is best for their school, but sometimes what's best for your school now may not be what's best for it five or 10 years from now.

"So that's got to be in consideration, too," he said. "I will say I'm glad everybody that's directly involved with this has decided to take their time to look at everything and look at as much information as possible before they make any rash decisions. Hopefully that will make this decision a little easier to make."

William McAdams, Hardin County principal and former football coach, was nominated last week to represent District 7 on the council, which takes in Madison County.

He said he plans to learn everything he can about the situation beginning with the council's work session Thursday. His initial thoughts are to vote according to the wishes of the majority of the schools in his district.

"I feel like that's what a representative should do," McAdams said. "But I've got a lot to learn and people to talk to before all of this happens."

Is there a solution?

The debate between public and private schools has gone on as long as Childress has been involved in TSSAA administration, which is 20 years. He said it's gone on much longer than that and in more places than the state of Tennessee.

"We met at the national association [last year], and an article was given to me from the executive director from another state about the first thing anybody knew of what was written about this whole issue," Childress said. "That article was written in 1925.

"This has been an issue since before any of us were here, and it will probably be an issue long after we're gone," he said.

USJ's Marley is preparing for his 27^th season as the Bruins' head football coach.

"If I coach 25 more years, we'll probably sit here and have this same conversation again," Marley said. "All this stuff comes up in cycles every few years for reasons I've never been able to figure out.

"People get mad at us because we've been to the state championship game five times, But if I were Trousdale County, I'd want to play us every time they went to state because they beat us pretty good that year. What people are trying to do is legislate winning, and you can't do that."

Childress said his job is to serve the membership and what's best for TSSAA.

"It's not our job to oppose or be for it," Childress said. "Our job is to do what the majority of our schools want, and we need to know what that is.

"But they need every ounce of information to be well informed before making any decisions," he said. "If you do this, this is what it would look like, and that needs to be done so everybody in the state knows what it would look like if this were to occur. That's basically where we are at this point."

Brandon Shields, 425-9751

Regulation of private schools varies by state

Here's a look at how neighboring states regulate their private schools in classification.

• Alabama – Private schools have an enrollment multiplier of 1.35.

• Arkansas – Private schools with more than 79 students in grades 10-12 are automatically moved up a class.

• Georgia – There was an enrollment multiplier of 1.5 from 2000-2008. A separation of private and public schools in the smallest classification was approved three years ago.

• Kentucky – There are no restrictions on private schools.

• Mississippi – Votes to ban private schools from competition with public schools have failed in recent years.

• North Carolina – The state association doesn't allow financial aid of any kind by private schools, but there is a separate association of independent/Christian schools that some have joined.

• South Carolina – A separate association is an option some private schools have taken, but there's also an association with private and public schools.

• Virginia – Public and private schools have different associations and tournaments.

Source: State athletic association websites.