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First meeting of WIAA's Ad Hoc Committee on Competitive Equity results in more questions than answers

07/21/2014, 10:15am CDT
By Travis Wilson

The first meeting of the WIAA's Ad Hoc Committee to address competitive equity issues was held on July 7th and 8th. The committee was born from the public/private debate that came to a head this spring when an amendment for a 1.65 enrollment Multiplier for all private schools was placed on the WIAA Annual Meeting agenda. The member schools voted to send the issue to committee instead.

A six-page summary of the Committee's two days of meetings was sent to all WIAA schools this morning and obtained by WSN.

The meeting began with a review of the timeline and the purpose for the committee, followed by introductions and opening remarks by committee members. Patrick Mans, the superintendent at Crivitz, and Sandy Freres, Athletic Director at The Prairie School, were selected as co-chairs of the committee.

Significant discussion by all members followed on the opening day, with a similar timeline followed on the second day. Much of the discussion involved questions related to the debate, including what the priorities of the group are, what the issues are, what the goals of the group should be, what information is available or needed, etc.

At the conclusion of the second day of meetings, ten possible solutions were presented for further evaluation. They are:

  • 1.65 multiplier  - need data for every sport, not just basketball
  • Status Quo
  • Addition of the division in basketball seems to have helped – add a division in all other sports (except football and basketball).  The lowest division could contain no private schools.  You could have a waiver request for private schools that don’t win at all.  
  • Long-term success factor.  Points for regionals, sectionals and state. Establish a threshold of points over a number of years for moving a school to a higher division.
  • Reducer – subtracting for free and reduced lunch population for all schools.  
  • Look at football playoff model for all team sports when it comes to qualifying for tournaments.
  • Equal distribution of private schools throughout the divisions.
  • Sport specific private and public separate state tournament or path to the state tournament (tennis, volleyball, soccer, golf).
  • Geographical population multiplier (public and private).
  • Out-of-feeder school/open enrolled student multiplier.

Two committee members will further research each possible solution and present findings at the next committee meetings, to be held August 3rd (5 pm to 8 pm) and August 4th (starting at 8 am).

Stay tuned to WSN for continued coverage of the Multiplier/Competitive Equity debate and process, and be sure to check out our Multiplier page for tons of historical information, news articles, and related documents.

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