Saturday, May 28, 2011

PIAA turns down non-boundary plans

CHAMBERSBURG (AP) – A PIAA committee has rejected proposals that had addressed growing concern over non-boundary schools.
That means PIAA classifications won’t change. In basketball, that means schools will remain divided into four groups, from A to AAAA.
The proposals were in response to increasing debate in recent years — especially in basketball — over whether competition was out of balance between public boundary schools and non-boundary schools, such as a Catholic or charter school.
One proposal turned down would have re-ordered boundary and non-boundary schools separately into four groups by size, then merging each set of schools again into the four classes.
PIAA assistant executive director Melissa Mertz said a strategic planning committee on Wednesday night voted down all three plans, and no action was needed by the full board.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike, I read a report on another website that this issue wasnt dead and, in fact, will be discussed at July's meeting...

Also being discussed was moving from a 16 week football season to a 15 week football season which would cut the playoff field from 16 teams to 8 teams. A lot of good playoff teams in football, especially in AA, have been seeded 9 and lower in recent years. You have to wonder if the WPIAL will agree to this and, if they dont, will they consider not playing in the state tournament?

Joey Niklas said...

I always thought this dividing private schools into 4 class's and then putting them back in with the public schools. That could backfire because the larger private schools are out east. This could schools like Greensburg Central and Seton La Selle into 1A. AS a Clairton fan I would welcome the challenge.

@Anon, have no fear. They(PIAA) will rebracket every class. WPIAL teams will still be able to have a 16 team playoff. What will happen is that the WPIAL winner will play in the PIAA Western finals for its first playoff game like in the past.