Ohio Supreme Court Sends Competitive Balance Challenge Back to Hamilton County Court

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Ohio Supreme Court Sends Competitive Balance Challenge Back to Hamilton County Court
High court determines that complaint brought by Cincinnati Greater Catholic League Co-Ed Division can proceed

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After an 11-month stay with the case, the Ohio Supreme Court announced July 17 that it has denied a request from the Ohio High School Athletic Association an order that would have prohibited the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas from exercising jurisdiction over the lawsuit brought on by the Cincinnati Greater Catholic League Co-Ed Division contesting the fairness of an element of the OHSAA’s Competitive Balance bylaw.

By a 5-2 decision, the state’s high court determined that the case can proceed in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas.

“The ruling issued July 16 by the Ohio Supreme Court did not end Competitive Balance, nor did it change the divisional assignments approved by our Board of Directors in June,” said Jerry Snodgrass, OHSAA Executive Director. “The ruling means the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas has subject matter jurisdiction to at least hear the legal challenge brought by the eight GCL Co-Ed schools. We are in the process of mounting a vigorous defense and, since the concern is regarding a bylaw issue that was adopted by our member schools through our democratic process, we are optimistic that there will be a positive outcome.”

In August, the lower court issued a temporary restraining order against the OHSAA’s implementation of Competitive Balance against the eight schools of the GCL Co-Ed Division. Members of the GCL Co-Ed Division include St. Bernard Roger Bacon, Hamilton Badin, Middletown Bishop Fenwick, Dayton Carroll, Dayton Chaminade-Julienne, Cincinnati Archbishop McNicholas, Cincinnati Purcell Marian and Kettering Archbishop Alter.

The OHSAA is a non-profit unincorporated association and the voluntary members of the OHSAA have democratically adopted a constitution and bylaws which only they themselves can be revise annually through their referendum process. A majority vote is needed to approve a proposed change. By renewing its membership within the OHSAA annually, each school also reaffirms that is will follow the OHSAA rules and regulations that are in place. The membership voted Competitive Balance into place in 2014 after four years of extensive study and preliminary proposals.

Competitive Balance affects only the sports of football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, softball and baseball. Using data submitted by each school, Competitive Balance analyzes the rosters of those sports and, in some cases, adds a factor to the base enrollment of the school for the specific sport. The factors added to the base enrollment create an adjusted enrollment, which is then used to determine the postseason tournament division for each school. In all other OHSAA sanctioned sports, only base enrollment numbers are used to determine postseason tournament divisions.

While the court’s temporary restraining order against Competitive Balance applies only to the eight GCL Co-Ed schools, all 814 OHSAA member schools are impacted by the actions and precedent set with this litigation.
 
 
Forgive me for ignorance, but does anyone know specifically how the Competitive Balance rules would positively/negatively affect these 8 schools? I'd like to hear specifics if anyone knows of them. Thank you.
 
Here's an article I found from last year. I think the jist of it is that Roger Bacon doesn't think that Catholic students who weren't in their feeder school in seventh grade should be considered Tier 1.

 
In my household, there are rules. Everyone must wear a shirt at the dinner table. Some rules are rather important and some are sort of silly.
I go to work and there are rules. I've been part of professional organizations and there are rules. Sports have rules. Many areas of life have rules. There are also groups and classifications that I fit into for some reasons or others. Some mean something while others mean little.

Who in their right mind goes to court over a rule? People that don't think rules apply to them. Go get a shirt on then get back here and sit at the table and eat. Don't you dare put your elbows on the table.
 
Here's an article I found from last year. I think the jist of it is that Roger Bacon doesn't think that Catholic students who weren't in their feeder school in seventh grade should be considered Tier 1.


Thank you for posting that article. Having read it and considered the arguments set forth, I am still ambivalent regarding whether the rule is really necessary. As the article stated, the ruling cuts both ways. I see legitimate arguments for both sides.

I think the ultimate question that should be asked of taxpayers in the first place is: WHY do parents want to pay the extra hard-earned dollars to send their kids to private or parochial schools, usually out of their district, in the first place. The obvious answer is that those schools are SUPERIOR in their educational content, methodologies of teaching, and disciplinary methods to those of public schools. As I see it, private & parochial schools are what public schools USED TO BE before the cultural morass and degradation that swept over the US in the 1960s. The lack of discipline within the home shows up in the lives of those children. Public schools used to offer a respite from that lack of discipline some 50+ years ago; however, with the advent of SJW's (social justice warriors) during the 1960s cultural degradation, it was deemed that little Johnny or Jill-Q-Public couldn't be disciplined within the school environment. Once that process started, it was all downhill from there into what is the nightmare of many public schools today. I've known many fine public school teachers in my day, and some are still teaching in them to this day. God bless them. However, the structure of the public system is fundamentally flawed. That is why the US trails so badly vs. the rest of the world in public school education. Lack of discipline and a cultural-mindset within the education establishment that only wants to absolve themselves of any responsibilities for a terribly flawed product.

For these reasons, I think the impetus behind the initial 2014 competitive balance rule was one born of jealousy. Yes, jealousy. Public school admins that are jealous of the private & parochial schools that offer a far better product than what they are able to provide. No one disputes the fact that parochial schools have a far wider recruiting base than do those of the average public school. However, the question does come down to WHY parents continue year after year to get their kids out of the public school system, and those public school administrations don't like the fact that they are able to. Hence, jealousy at those providing a far superior product.

For these reasons, I find myself siding with the GCL-Coed schools in this argument regarding the current plan.

As a side note, I am not Catholic myself.
 
With all due respect Javman, none of what you say has anything to do with this. Members of an association voted on a proposal and it was approved. You want to make changes, you go through the association not the court system.
 
Members of an association voted on a proposal and it was approved. You want to make changes, you go through the association not the court system.

That is the bottom line, and why Roger Bacon is wasting it's time and money. Can you imagine the chaos if every vote of the association was challenged in court by schools that are on the losing end?
 
With all due respect Javman, none of what you say has anything to do with this. Members of an association voted on a proposal and it was approved. You want to make changes, you go through the association not the court system.
With all due respect, OHSAA is NOT outside the purview of the court system. It is not a private institution, and given that most of its members are publicly-funded institutions, any and all actions by those members are subject to judicial review if such actions find their way before a judge.
 
Thank you for posting that article. Having read it and considered the arguments set forth, I am still ambivalent regarding whether the rule is really necessary. As the article stated, the ruling cuts both ways. I see legitimate arguments for both sides.

I think the ultimate question that should be asked of taxpayers in the first place is: WHY do parents want to pay the extra hard-earned dollars to send their kids to private or parochial schools, usually out of their district, in the first place. The obvious answer is that those schools are SUPERIOR in their educational content, methodologies of teaching, and disciplinary methods to those of public schools. As I see it, private & parochial schools are what public schools USED TO BE before the cultural morass and degradation that swept over the US in the 1960s. The lack of discipline within the home shows up in the lives of those children. Public schools used to offer a respite from that lack of discipline some 50+ years ago; however, with the advent of SJW's (social justice warriors) during the 1960s cultural degradation, it was deemed that little Johnny or Jill-Q-Public couldn't be disciplined within the school environment. Once that process started, it was all downhill from there into what is the nightmare of many public schools today. I've known many fine public school teachers in my day, and some are still teaching in them to this day. God bless them. However, the structure of the public system is fundamentally flawed. That is why the US trails so badly vs. the rest of the world in public school education. Lack of discipline and a cultural-mindset within the education establishment that only wants to absolve themselves of any responsibilities for a terribly flawed product.

For these reasons, I think the impetus behind the initial 2014 competitive balance rule was one born of jealousy. Yes, jealousy. Public school admins that are jealous of the private & parochial schools that offer a far better product than what they are able to provide. No one disputes the fact that parochial schools have a far wider recruiting base than do those of the average public school. However, the question does come down to WHY parents continue year after year to get their kids out of the public school system, and those public school administrations don't like the fact that they are able to. Hence, jealousy at those providing a far superior product.

For these reasons, I find myself siding with the GCL-Coed schools in this argument regarding the current plan.

As a side note, I am not Catholic myself.

Catholic schools were popular and successful long before the 1960s.
 
With all due respect Javman, none of what you say has anything to do with this. Members of an association voted on a proposal and it was approved. You want to make changes, you go through the association not the court system.
With all due respect, OHSAA is NOT outside the purview of the court system. It is not a private institution, and given that most of its members are publicly-funded institutions, any and all actions by those members are subject to judicial review if such actions find their way before a judge.
Catholic schools were popular and successful long before the 1960s.
True, but unless my memory is correct, there wasn't the flock to them, and especially the development of private schools, until after the "cultural" revolution and subsequent degradation of structure & discipline within the public school system. That's my view.
 
The problem is a number of schools bringing together entire AAU teams in basketball and similar things in other sports. This also lead to when these teams made it to state they would comes very few fans so this was attendance dollars.

Toledo CC for instance about 75% of freshman boys that go there play football. In recent years their CC team made it to state last year they had 3 runners. So mostly football players are choosing the "SUPERIOR in their educational content, methodologies of teaching, and disciplinary methods to those of public schools."
 
So in what way are these private schools really that superior? I ask this as somebody who attended a parochial school from grades k-8, in firestone park, then went to Coventry High School. I ask this as someone who went to Coventry High School, and whose sibling went to SVSM.

Seems to me, that my classmates at Coventry were better behaved then they were at St Pauls.

Seems to me that from the stories my sister told me about SVSM, they really weren't any better behaved then at Coventry

Seems to me discipline was all the same, we all got detentions, or suspensions if we misbehaved. Nobody in either place got paddled. Not that I myself or my sister ever got in trouble for anything. We were well behaved. But point is, discipline was roughly the same.

Seems to me the students at Coventry were much nicer. I was bullied all the time at St Pauls. Teachers there turned a blind eye to that. At Coventry, I had no problems making friends. The students there where much more christlike then they were at Saint Pauls.

Seems to me, we are assuming that quality of academics is directly related to the quantity of homework kids are getting. Because in comparing the curriculum I had, versus my sister, we seemed to be covering the exact same material at the exact same point in the year. Difference was, my sister had 3 times as much homework as I did. But you don't need piles of homework to get a good education. Finland is proof of that.

So in what way are these parochial schools really all that superior? Seems all like a charade if you ask me. I think the parents of over 400 students open enrolled at Coventry have seen through that charade as well, given they are choosing to send their students here instead of a parochial school.
 
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There are not more kids going to private schools today than there used to be. Nationally just over 10% of students are in private schools, which is about a half percent higher than five years ago and about what it was 10 years ago. It is also a percent lower than it was in 2000. And five-ish percent lower than the peak in the early 70s. That peak was driven by public school integration. I have to say I disagree completely that the balance proposal was initiated out of jealousy that had anything to do with academic offerings.

Private schools do have higher test scores than public schools on the overall average. Though not nearly what you would expect. If you exclude charter schools the advantage is even narrower. If you control for socio-economics of the students, then private schools on the average have test scores that are almost as good as traditional public schools. There are absolutely private schools that are fantastic academically. There are also public schools that are fantastic academically. In terms of the programs they can offer, the best schools tend to be wealthier suburban high schools, because they have more money to spend. Look at the program offerings in Dublin, Hilliard, Olentangy or Mason schools. There really aren't private schools that offer more or better programs, and the few that can even equal the program offerings are very expensive. There are lots of reasons parents choose to send their kids to private schools. And the perceived better academics or student safety of some schools compared to their public alternative absolutely plays a roll. And academic rigor is not the only reason people choose schools. If it were Walnut Hills would be the largest high school in the state and a lot of Catholic high schools in Cincinnati would be smaller. But academic jealousy isn't why public schools pushed for the competitive balance rules.

You could argue that this was out of jealousy. Private schools recruit. They actually have to recruit kids in order to stay in business. A lot of that recruiting carries at least the appearance of being against the spirit of the OHSAA rules. There are also public schools that recruit. There are plenty of people who choose here their kid goes to school based on the sports programs. But the impetus for the rule was public schools feeling as though they are at a big competitive disadvantage compared to private schools because of recruiting. I understand how coaches and administrators can feel losing to a private school team that may have a bunch of kids that you feel "should" go to your school. I am not actually a fan because I think a close look at the data shows that the big advantage is for schools that have lots of students whose parents are financially well to do. In other words, all other things being equal, on the average if you have a lot more resources available to the school and the athletes, you will win more. In practical terms how different is a parent being able to afford to move to Mason for the good schools than a parent who can afford tuition at Ursuline?

Ultimately, I think the GCL will lose, because to win in court they would likely have to show that the rules are biased because of race, religion, gender or some other such factor. Or that the implementation was arbitrary and capricious. Pyschodad is correct that Roger Bacon and the other GCL schools chose to be in the OHSAA and the organization has clear procedures for setting its rules.
 
We can argue about private vs public education, but this is not about that. This is about putting schools into divisions for the OHSAA athletic championship tournaments. Just looking at football, there is only like 60 kids difference between being D3 and D5 or between D4 and D6. A public school like Woodridge has enough kids that could never participate in athletics that if they weren't counted, it would drop them down a division or two. The private schools that surround Woodridge do not have that issue. 230 boys here is not necessarily 230 boys over there.

It is just my opinion that the court system is not the appropriate place to fight this fight.
 
We can argue about private vs public education, but this is not about that. This is about putting schools into divisions for the OHSAA athletic championship tournaments. Just looking at football, there is only like 60 kids difference between being D3 and D5 or between D4 and D6. A public school like Woodridge has enough kids that could never participate in athletics that if they weren't counted, it would drop them down a division or two. The private schools that surround Woodridge do not have that issue. 230 boys here is not necessarily 230 boys over there.

It is just my opinion that the court system is not the appropriate place to fight this fight.

I respect yours and others opinions, while agreeing to differ.
 
I remember when I was a kid how we would play pick up games. We would pick captains and have the one captain pick all his team first and then the other captain picked his team from the rest of the kids. If the games weren't lopsided enough, we would adjust the teams until the games were complete blow outs.

I would spend hours upon hours trying to get better so that I could play down an age group or two.
 
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