The PIAA board of directors met Wednesday and did not take any action to address the public vs. private school issue that has become a hot topic in high school athletics. But some rather big news still came out of the meeting concerning the transfers of student-athletes and teams that are successful with transfers.

The PIAA passed, on a first reading basis, two rules that would be major changes in Pennsylvania high school sports. The rules must pass two more readings, but PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said the organization could suspend protocol and put the rules into effect immediately after passing a second reading in July.

The two rules are:

• Student-athletes who transfer high schools — public or private/Catholic/charter — any time after ninth grade will be ineligible for the postseason at their new school for one year. This rule would start in the 2018-19 school year and would not be retroactive to students who transferred at any point in the 2017-18 school year.

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• The PIAA has come up with a “competition success formula” that could move schools up in classification if they have transfers and go far in the postseason. The formula is confusing but would not move teams up in classification that win and do not have transfers.

Lombardi said there was only some discussion about the public vs. private school issue at Wednesday’s meeting in Mechanicsburg. Many school superintendents in Pennsylvania are calling for separate postseason tournaments for public and private/Catholic/charter schools, but the PIAA does not want to go down that road, Lombardi said.

“The feeling of the board is that unless the [Pennsylvania] general assembly changes the law, we’re not going to get ourselves into a position where we’re taking on one sector of the membership,” said Lombardi. “We want to treat all members equally, and this competition success formula does that. It doesn’t segregate people. … We feel the success formula, coupled with the transfers, crosses all schools and is equitable.”

The WPIAL is part of the PIAA, but WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley preferred not to comment on the proposed new PIAA rules because he has not seen the exact language of the rules yet.

“We will talk about it next week,” said O’Malley. “But I would say that any movement to tighten the transfer rule is welcome.”

Under the proposed new PIAA transfer rule, student-athletes can transfer schools without penalty at the “natural break,” which is between eighth and ninth grade. But anyone who transfers after the start of ninth grade will be ineligible for playoffs for one year in any sport they participated in previously.

But a transfer can still be ruled eligible by a district committee if the transfer was necessitated by “exceptional and unusual” circumstances. Transfers for academic needs, or for developmental, spiritual or social reasons are not considered exceptional and compelling.

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A question, though, is what about a student-athlete who physically moves with his family? Lombardi said that student-athlete could be ruled eligible for the postseason at his new school, but would have to have a hearing with the district committee (WPIAL). In essence, the PIAA will possibly be curbing transfers to Catholic/private/charter schools by students who do not move. However, student-athletes might still be willing to transfer and sit out one postseason, only to be eligible for the playoffs the next year.

The “com­pe­ti­tion suc­cess for­mula” is a lit­tle com­pli­cated, ty­ing to­gether post­sea­son wins and trans­fer stu­dents that could af­fect clas­si­fi­ca­tions of teams. It will go into ef­fect in 2018-19, but would not af­fect teams un­til 2020-21. 

Clas­si­fi­ca­tions are based on school en­roll­ments. Under the pro­posed new for­mula, teams get points for ad­vanc­ing far in the post­sea­son. Ad­vanc­ing to a dis­trict (WPIAL) cham­pi­on­ship is worth one point, the PIAA quar­ter­fi­nals two points, the PIAA semi­fi­nals three and a PIAA cham­pi­on­ship four. 

If a school reaches six points or more over a two-year span, the school will move up one clas­si­fi­ca­tion, but only if it also ex­ceeds the max­i­mum num­ber of trans­fer stu­dents al­lowed in that sport. The max­i­mum num­ber of trans­fer stu­dents would be one fewer than half of the start­ing size of that sport. Two ex­am­ples: In foot­ball, it would be five, and, in base­ball, it would be four.”

Con­fused? Let’s use bas­ket­ball as an ex­am­ple. If Team A wins a WPIAL cham­pi­on­ship one year, and makes it to the PIAA semi­fi­nals, that’s a to­tal of four points. If that team makes it to the PIAA quar­ter­fi­nals the next year, that’s a to­tal of six points over two years. If that team also had two play­ers who were trans­fers, then that team must move up one clas­si­fi­ca­tion in the next two-year cy­cle. How­ever, it should be pointed out that teams that ac­cu­mu­late more than six points in the suc­cess for­mula and don’t have the max­i­mum num­ber of trans­fer stu­dents, will stay in their as­signed class. In other words, win with­out trans­fers, and you won’t have to move up. 

“The is­sue seems to be schools are not only hav­ing suc­cess, but re­load­ing some­times with new play­ers,” said Lom­bardi. “That’s a con­cern of the board. If peo­ple are hav­ing suc­cess and do­ing it with kids in their own build­ing, that’s not an is­sue.”

A ques­tion is what hap­pens to a team play­ing in the larg­est clas­si­fi­ca­tion al­ready and is deemed to have to move up? Lom­bardi said the PIAA will likely have a sev­enth clas­si­fi­ca­tion in foot­ball and bas­ket­ball for teams that have to move up un­der the suc­cess for­mula. Teams can also choose to play on their own in the sev­enth clas­si­fi­ca­tion. 

Lom­bardi said the PIAA also will start a three-mem­ber in­ves­ti­ga­tive com­mit­tee with the hopes of in­ves­ti­gat­ing some ques­tion­able trans­fers and also schools that might be break­ing PIAA rules. In the fu­ture, all trans­fers must be reg­is­tered in a PIAA por­tal. Pre­vi­ously, trans­fers only had to be reg­is­tered with dis­tricts, like the WPIAL.

Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh

First Published: May 24, 2018, 8:42 p.m.