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Six Rivers schools circulate new petition to force Reducer vote on WIAA Annual Meeting agenda

02/13/2015, 11:45am CST
By Travis Wilson

A year after a Private School Multiplier petition rocked the high school sports community in Wisconsin, the same schools from the Six Rivers Conference are circulating a new petition in response to what they feel was an inadequate solution presented by the Ad Hoc Committee.

The petition was sent to all schools yesterday and signed by Belmont District Administrator Jim Siedenburg and Barneveld District Administrator Kevin Knudson, the two most outspoken critics of private school classification and the Success Factor.

Below is a text of the email:

Dear School Administrator:
 
Last spring we petitioned the WIAA to apply a 1.65 multiplier to enrollments of nonpublic schools for tournament classification.  This issue ended up in a committee which has recommended application of a "success factor".
 
We feel this approach does not address competitive inequity between public and nonpublic schools.  Furthermore, it was never our intent to punish success.
 
We have been looking at the correlation between poverty and athletic participation and are now moving forward an effort to petition the WIAA to apply to our tournament classification of schools the "Minnesota Plan" which reduces from a school's enrollment 40% of its free/reduced lunch count.  This plan is supported by a survey of all Minnesota public schools that shows students in poverty participate in school activities at a rate 40% lower than students of non-poverty.
 
Attached please find a petition to amend the “classification” section (Article III, section 3) of the constitution of the WIAA by applying this reduction to the enrollment of all schools.
 
Support movement of this petition to the April 22, 2015 WIAA Annual Meeting by signing and returning the petition to Jim Siedenburg by email (siedenj@belmont.k12.wi.us), or  you may simply reply to this email with a “declaration of support”.
 
Please return petitions (signed by superintendents or principals) by February 25.
 
Thank you for your consideration.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jim Siedenburg                             Kevin Knudson
District Administrator                     District Administrator
Belmont School District                 Barneveld School District
                                                       President, WIAA Board of Control    2009
                                                           Member, Board of Control        2003-2009
                                                           Member, Advisory Council       1997-2003

The Petition

The Petition itself is a separate attachment and reads:

PETITION TO AMEND THE WIAA CONSTITUTION

We, the administrators and high school principals of WIAA member senior high schools, who have signed below, are seeking to amend the WIAA Constitution effective as soon as possible, as follows:

Article III – Membership

Section 3 – Classification

A. Each senior high school shall be classified for purposes of membership, representation, and competition (including tournaments where necessary) on the basis of previous year’s enrollment on the third Friday in September.

1) Schools with only Grades 10-12 students shall add, for purposes of classification and competition:

a. The total enrollment figure of the Grade 9 students, if there is only one school with Grades 10-12 students in the district.

b. One-third of the enrollment of Grades 10-12, if there is more than one school with Grades 10-12 students in the district.

2) If a school submits by October 1 the appropriate form to verify its free and reduced lunch statistics as of the third Friday in September of each year, the school shall have its enrollment for purposes of classification calculated using the following formula: X – (Y x 0.4) = Z:

X=TOTAL ENROLLMENT

Y=NUMBER OF FREE/REDUCED LUNCH STUDENTS

Z=ENROLLMENT NUMBER FOR CLASSIFICATION

Upon request, the school must provide additional verification (from the state and/or federal government) of the figures included in the form submitted by the school for purposes of this calculation.

3) The Board of Control shall have authority to adjust enrollment figures in unusual situations (such as consolidation, formation of new school, gain or loss of district, etc.), provided such information is made known before September 15 of each year.

4 3) The enrollment of schools consisting of students of only one sex shall be doubled to determine its classification.

Note: When two or more school districts consolidate, the third Friday enrollment count of the previous year will be used for all WIAA tournaments.

5 4) In a multiple high school district, charter school enrollment will be identified by the district according to student residence. The students will be assigned and counted by the school of residence or participation, enrollment and divisional classification.

Reducer rejected by Ad Hoc Committee

The Reducer was considered and ultimately rejected by the WIAA's Ad Hoc Committee, which included Benton Superintendent Kyle Luedtke from the Six Rivers Conference.

The rationale for rejection by the Committee was outlined in a presentation to the WIAA's Board of Control in Decmeber:

  • No defensible /logical basis on coming up with 40%.
  • Access to data constantly changing.
  • Federal policy has changed.
  • Minnesota HS Ex. Director has indicated that the reducer has made no tangible difference.
  • Private and public school data incomplete.
  • Large Public Schools would be moved down.
  • Data difficult to track and is often inaccurate.

Application

There were attempts by members of the Ad Hoc Committee to apply the Reducer criteria to current enrollments to determine how it would impact classifications. The committee did not apply any reducer to private schools as their information was not known, though many private schools do have students that participate in the Free and Reduced Lunch programs.

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