The Associated Press

COLUMBUS — The board of the Ohio High School Athletic Association is asking its members to vote on a bylaw that would place schools into tournament divisions based on a new enrollment formula aimed at creating a level playing field between public and private schools.

The board voted Thursday to place the issue before members in May. The association says a three-part formula would be used to establish a sport-by-sport “athletic count” at each school. Factors considered would be enrollment boundaries and policies, socio-economics and past performance.

Schools are now placed into divisions based strictly on enrollment numbers.

If approved, the system would be implemented by the 2013-14 school year for football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball. Other sports would be considered in the future.

The proposed new bylaw, which will be voted upon by OHSAA member schools during the annual referendum voting process in May, states that “each school shall be placed into tournament divisions based on its sport-by-sport athletic count.”

Schools would not be separated into tournaments for public schools and non-public schools, nor would a “multiplier” be applied to non-public schools to increase their enrollment, which a few other states utilize. Rather, the enrollment numbers for all schools (both public and non-public) would be entered into a three-part formula to establish their “athletic count.”

At the present time, all schools are placed into tournament divisions based strictly on enrollment figures that the schools submit to the Ohio Department of Education.

The proposed three-part formula to establish athletic counts would require the OHSAA to also include a school boundary factor (how students are obtained – non-public schools with no boundaries; non-public schools with limited boundaries; public schools with statewide open enrollment; public schools with adjacent open enrollment, and public schools with no open enrollment), a socioeconomic factor (the number of free lunch participants) and a tradition factor (state championship game appearances, state tournament appearances and regional finals appearances).

The school boundary and tradition factors could increase a school’s enrollment while the socioeconomic factor could decrease a school’s enrollment. The tradition factor is the only one of the three that would be implemented on a sport-by-sport basis.

Once all three factors are applied to the enrollment count, each school will have a sport-by-sport “athletic count” for purposes of tournament division assignments.

“The issue of competitive balance has been discussed for years not only in Ohio but also in other states,” said OHSAA Commissioner Daniel B. Ross, Ph. D.

“Ohio is unique in that our public schools have the option to approve open enrollment policies, but, at the same time, there’s no question that most non-public schools in the state have no geographical boundaries in which they can secure students and the result has been a disproportionate number of championships won by those schools.”