FHSAA may split up rural, urban schools
By D.C. Reeves • Pensacola News Journal • June 14, 2010
Jay High School defines rural. It has 274 students. Tucked into the northwest corner of Santa Rosa County, fewer than 900 people live in the school’s 32565 ZIP code. Acres of peanut plants line up perfectly in rows across from the school’s front office. An area that couldn’t be further from metro Miami in either miles or culture, the Jay High campus has an ironic address: 13683 Alabama St.
It’s way up here where Elijah Bell, the school’s longtime football coach and athletic director, has spent almost a decade working to level the playing fields for small, rural Florida schools like his.
“Schools that are rural have a geographic (disadvantage) that makes us different than the small schools that are in urban populations (across Florida),” Bell said from his cramped, windowless office cluttered with boxes of dusty trophies. “Us folks out in the country, we have a small area where we glean our students from and have been doing this ever since we’ve had a school.”
On Tuesday, waiting to hear word from his sleepy town known more for its crops than its A-list football players, Bell might see his dream fulfilled.
The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) Board of Directors will vote on a recommendation that would create a new rural classification, called “Division II,” in eight sports: Football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, softball, baseball and volleyball. That means any public or private school with fewer than 500 students located in an area designated rural by the Florida Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development (OTTED) will be invited to join. That 500 figure could increase depending on how many qualifying programs opt out of playing in the new league.
To pass, the recommendation will need a majority vote from the 16 FHSAA board of directors during Tuesday’s board meeting in Gainesville. If the recommendation is approved, the new classification would go into effect as a pilot program for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years.
FHSAA to discuss possibility of forming “Urban” division
June 04, 2010 5:23 PM
By PAT MCCANN / News Herald Executive Sports Editor
PORT ST. JOE — The level athletic playing field that many small public high schools in the Panhandle have sought for years may be coming into focus.
On June 15, the Florida High School Athletic Association will vote on moving forward with investigating the forming of a “Rural” division in eight team sports that could be implemented as early as the 2011-12 school year.
The vote stems from a committee that has gathered statewide input from parents and coaches at public meetings, the most recent in Port St. Joe on Thursday night.
Tim Wilder, Gulf County Superintendent of Schools and FHSAA president-elect, said the effort represents the most headway on the issue in the past 15-20 years.
“There have always been rumblings about it, but this is the first time the board has been approached as a collective unit,” Wilder said Friday. “It is very doable and very possible.”
Wilder stressed that the forthcoming recommendation is not a public school vs. private school issue. Rather it compares the ability of an urban school to attract student-athletes from a metropolitan area competing against a rural public school from a county of 20,000 residents.
“You can’t punish the private schools because the state and the Department of Education give them the right to do what they do,” Wilder said.
The alternative could create a new rural division of schools with enrollments of 500 students or less. If the recommendation gets FHSAA approval on June 15 to move ahead, it is possible a restructured division could be adopted in November.
The team sports involved would be girls and boys basketball, baseball, football, boys and girls soccer, softball and girls volleyball. Wilder said that a number of options must be considered including redistricting, reclassification, an appeals process for eligible schools that did not wish to participate as well as those whose enrollment might exceed the threshold and wish to join.
Many local schools pleased that Policy 6 will not be enforced by FHSAA
Programs react to rescind
A week after the state’s high school athletic association rescinded a policy to reduce the maximum number of games that all sports teams — except football and cheerleading — played in a season, Big Bend coaches report varying degrees of repercussions.
In April, the Florida High School Athletic Association passed Policy 6, which reduced the number of varsity sports contests by 20 percent and sub-varsity by 40 percent. A gender-equity lawsuit forced the FHSAA to rescind the policy.
That was a welcome development in terms of scheduling for Florida High girls volleyball coach Rita Crockett. The change back to 25 matches from 20 has allowed her to add two matches each with Maclay and Chiles and one more match in a tournament.
“I wouldn’t have been able to play local matches,” Crockett said. “Our team is getting strong, and I want to be able to play everybody in the community.”
Several sports will only be adding two competitions to their schedules. According to Wakulla golf coach Tom Graham and Leon cross country coach Andrew Wills, two more contests will have no impact on their sports.
Full Story Link Below:
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20090724/SPORTS01/907240340/
Many+local+schools
+pleased+Policy+6+will+not+be+enforced+by+FHSAA
Gender equity lawsuit against FHSAA put on hold
Sentinel Staff Writer
The lawsuit filed against the Florida High School Athletic Association was put on hold Thursday, one day after the association’s board of directors voted 15-0 to rescind controversial schedule cuts that drew the ire of gender equity advocates.
Still looming is the legal question of whether or not excusing football’s 10-game regular season from reductions is a violation of Title IX and other federal and state gender equity standards. That may prove to be the ongoing issue for public school districts — including Volusia — that have independently reduced sports schedules to deal with budget shortages.
Volusia County lowered its game limits by 10 percent prior to the 2008-09 school year for all sports except football.
Nancy Hogshead-Makar, the Jacksonville law professor who pressed the FHSAA into giving up on its plan to reduce its maximum on games allowed, said excusing football from budget cuts is a clear violation.
“You cannot excuse football because it makes money. The law does not allow that,” she said.
Volusia Schools superintendent Margaret Smith said her district will adjust.
“We’ll have some work to do with other districts and within our own,” Smith said. “We will not have a legal problem. We will be in compliance. I have notified our principals that we will be revisiting the schedule issue and working to add some games back in.”
Link below full story
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/highschool/orl-sportsfhsaa17071709jul17,0,3719660.story
FHSAA rescinds plans to reduce playing schedule
By Hays Carlyon
GAINESVILLE — The Florida High School Athletics Association board voted unanimously Wednesday to rescind a policy enacted in April that was challenged over gender-equity issues.
The FHSAA’s revised Policy 6 reduced the maximum number of regular-season games by 20 percent for varsity teams and 40 percent for sub-varsity teams in all sports except football and competitive cheerleading for the next two years.
The decision was made to help schools reduce their travel budgets in light of the state’s budget cuts and originally passed by a 9-6 vote.
Now, there will be the same amount of games allowed in the upcoming athletic school year as in 2008-09.
“There’s an old saying in Florida that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” FHSAA executive director Roger Dearing said to the board while making his recommendation to rescind the new policy. “It does us no good to take the money we would’ve saved on the cuts and spend it in court.”
Court costs are divided among the association’s member schools.
While Dearing said the association will not revive the issue in the future, a lawsuit being brought by the Florida Parents for Athletic Equity will likely continue at least for the next two days.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan will be asked to declare the reductions illegal in a hearing Friday morning in Jacksonville unless a settlement is reached.
The parents group’s cause received a boost Tuesday when the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Department of Education filed a motion asking for permission to join the case on its behalf.
The FHSAA’s board of directors to rescind policy reducing sports contests for 2009-2010
BY DAN DELUCA • FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS • JULY 15, 2009
According to the meeting agenda, executive director Roger Dearing has recommended rescinding Policy 6, which affected every sport but football and competitive cheerleading.
But that reversal won’t end the association’s legal fight with Title IX advocates.
On Friday, attorneys representing the Florida Parents for Athletic Equity will seek a temporary injunction in a Jacksonville court that will bar the FHSAA from implementing its scheduling policy.
“The only thing that has made the Florida High School Athletic Association act is litigation,” said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an attorney representing the parents’ group. “If that’s true, we’re not representing our clients well if we just go away.”
Hogshead-Makar said without the injunction, there would be nothing to prevent the FHSAA from trying to reinstitute the cuts at a later date.
Responding to what it called a plea for help from the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, the FHSAA board voted 9-6 in April to reduce the maximum number of regular-season games for every varsity sport except football and cheerleading by 20 percent and every sub-varsity sport by 40 percent.
The move was made to assist cash-strapped school districts statewide who pay for travel.
Football was exempted from the cuts because for most schools, it’s the biggest revenue generator. Cheerleading wasn’t cut in an effort to avoid violating Title IX, a federal law prohibiting discrimination in school programs based on sex.
However, the change infuriated a number of parents and athletic directors statewide. Title IX advocates like Hogshead-Makar – a three-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming – also took notice.
Link Below Full Story
FHSAA chief eyes rescinding schedule-cutting policy
By Paul Pinkham Wednesday July 8,2009 Jacksonville Times Union
The executive director of the agency that governs school athletics in Florida is recommending that a policy cutting most sports schedules be rescinded after it was criticized as discriminatory toward female athletes.
But even if the Florida High School Athletic Association’s board goes along when it meets next week in Gainesville, it won’t end a gender equity lawsuit the parents of six girls filed to challenge the policy, their lawyer said.
Roger Dearing, the association’s executive director, recommends rescinding the cuts, which affected every sport except football and cheerleading, according to an attachment to the board’s agenda, posted Wednesday.
Dearing was unavailable for comment, and a spokeswoman said the association wouldn’t be discussing the policy until after next week’s meeting. Dearing had previously suggested the board reconsider the policy, designed to cut costs, because he feared any money saved would be offset by the cost of litigation.
The girls’ parents, including four in Northeast Florida, had sued to block implementation of the policy on grounds that exempting football from the cuts discriminated against female athletes.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan is scheduled to hear arguments in Jacksonville on a temporary injunction July 17, two days after the Gainesville meeting.
Attorney Nancy Hogshead-Makar, representing the parents, said that hearing will go on as scheduled, even if the board follows Dearing’s recommendation. Without an injunction, she said, there’s nothing to stop the board from re-implementing the policy in the future.
“The only thing that has made the Florida High School Athletic Association act is litigation,” Hogshead-Makar said.
Under Dearing’s recommendation, all sports would go back to the same number of contests as last year. The policy, adapted in April, had cut varsity sports 20 percent and sub-varsity sports 40 percent except football and cheerleading.
Story Link Below
FHSAA: Football is co-ed sport
A motion in a lawsuit on gender equity cites girls playing the sport.
By Paul Pinkham Jacksonville Times Union
Story updated at 7:37 AM on Tuesday, Jul. 7, 2009
Lawyers for the agency that regulates high school athletics in Florida have asked a judge to dismiss a gender equity lawsuit against it on grounds that football is a coed sport.
They cite to the judge that at least three girls statewide play football and said that means a decision by the Florida High School Athletic Association to reduce all sports schedules except football and cheerleading doesn’t discriminate.
“On a sport-by-sport basis, male athletes will be affected by [the] revised policy … in the same manner as similarly situated female athletes,” their motion said.
The association was responding to a lawsuit filed by the parents of six girls, four from Northeast Florida, who said the budget-cutting policy change disparately treats female athletes under Title IX, a 1972 federal law that requires equity in school sports.
“This is an attempt to exclude football from the analysis, which they can’t do,” said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, the parents’ attorney. “There have been numerous attempts in all three branches of government to try to take football out of the mix of Title IX. They have failed every single time.”
The association’s motion to dismiss was filed last week despite a specially called July 15 meeting of its board to reconsider the policy. That meeting was prompted by fear of costly litigation, association officials said.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan scheduled a July 17 hearing to consider the parents’ request for an emergency halt to the policy change before athletic directors begin implementing it for the 2009-10 school year.
Both the association’s lawyers declined comment Monday. Their motion said the policy change doesn’t distinguish between sports based on gender. For instance, male and female soccer players both face the same schedule cuts, the motion said.
“The more appropriate analysis is whether males and females are given an equal opportunity to play a particular sport,” it said.
But Hogshead-Makar said the motion to dismiss fails to point out that school districts can opt to make contact sports, such as football, all male.
Link http://www.jacksonville.com/sports/high_school/2009-07-07/story/fhsaa_football_is_co-ed_sport