OSSAA board to hear proposal

Blanchard Superintendent Jim Beckham will make a proposal to split nonpublic schools from public schools in all OSSAA postseason activities.

Blanchard superintendent Jim Beckham believes the high school classification system for private schools is broken.

Wednesday will be his chance to bring change.

Beckham will make a proposal to the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association board of directors that would split nonpublic schools from public schools in all OSSAA postseason activities.

The proposal would replace Rule 14, which forces private schools to play a classification higher than its average attendance based on success. It was established in 2011.

“It has proven not to work,” Beckham said. “I think it’s had enough time to actually prove it does work or it doesn’t. Obviously, to me and a lot of others it hasn’t worked.”

On a day where hundreds of student-athletes will sign to play a college sport, the OSSAA board of directors faces a decision, too.

The public vs. private debate has been building for decades. To some, it’s reached a tipping point. But some also view it as a non-issue.

“I hate to keep fighting this battle,” McGuinness athletic director Gary Savely said.

Nobody truly knows what the 17-member board will do. Here is a breakdown of its options:

Approval

The board has to vote in majority for approval, and that’s possible in this situation.

If the board votes approval for the proposal, it would then need to be submitted to member schools as a referendum ballot for voting. Again, to be approved it would need another majority vote, which would be likely with so few private-school members.

The board could also limit the vote to the classifications affected by the proposal. Class 6A, for example, has no private schools and could be left out of the voting.

Denial

The board could find the proposal a non-issue and vote it down by a majority vote. In that case, Beckham’s proposal could not be resubmitted for one year, according to the OSSAA constitution.

No action

It is rare, but the board could simply not vote at all and move on without any action.

But when past private school proposals have been presented, the OSSAA board has been thoughtful and patient with finding a solution.

When Rule 14 was adopted, that happened only after a committee was formed by the OSSAA, met for two years and attempted multiple proposals.

Once the board felt the rule was fair, it was approved and sent to membership for a vote.

For this proposal, it would not be surprising if it had to go through the same path. The board could form another committee — though a classification committee has met multiple times in the past two years — to look for a solution. In that case, this discussion could carry on for a long time.