PIAA Public and private schools stay as one

The Pennsylvania governing board won't change its championship format.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The PIAA has decided that separate tournaments for private and public schools won't be part of any changes made to its basketball championship format.
PIAA executive director Brad Cashman said last month he would ask the PIAA's policy review committee to discuss possible changes in the way it handles private schools.
Currently, private schools in good standing are accorded the same treatment as public schools in PIAA and can qualify for PIAA tournaments. Just as with public schools, private schools are classified based on their enrollment.
In some other states, however, private schools' enrollments are multiplied by a certain percentage to determine classification. The multiplier is used to address the perceived advantage that private schools have by drawing students from a wider area than public schools.
The PIAA's policy review committee opposes separate tournaments for public and private schools.
Multiplier effect
But it directed Cashman and the PIAA's legal counsel to determine the impact a multiplier would have and whether it could withstand almost certain legal challenges.
"I'm willing to look at anything, but on this multiplier, I want to know how it's determined," said Richard Culver, the athletics director at Bethlehem Catholic High School and the former private school representative on the PIAA board of directors.
Missouri uses a multiplier of 1.35 to determine private school enrollments, a formula that withstood a court challenge.
In that state, a private school's enrollment is multiplied by 1.35 to determine its classification for state tournament competition.
"I don't know what the history is in Missouri," Culver said. "But I do know it was the Pennsylvania Legislature that mandated the private schools be put in the PIAA [in 1972]. If anything has changed, I believe it would have to come through the Legislature."
Philadelphia
The PIAA's policy review committee took no action on determining a playoff format for the 2004-05 school year, when Philadelphia Public League schools become eligible for the PIAA playoffs as District 12.
The committee said it needed more data and more playoff models to consider before choosing a plan. That plan then will be presented to the PIAA board of directors.
The first models presented to the committee showed potential football playoff brackets using the current four-class system and a proposed six-class system.
One model showed District 7 teams entering the state playoffs at different times. Currently, WPIAL champions in all four classes go directly to the state semifinals, but the new model showed District 7's Class AAA and Class AAAA champions entering a week earlier, in the state quarterfinals.
District 7 chairman Tim O'Malley said that plan is unacceptable because the WPIAL wants to keep its current 16-team, four-week playoff structure that culminates with four championship games at Heinz Field. The WPIAL is the state's largest athletic league and is a PIAA district unto itself.
The models also showed District 3 moving into the western bracket in Class AAAA football and Districts 5 and 6 moving into the eastern brackets in Class A.