Schmit: Public vs. private school debate coming to a head with IHSA bylaw proposals

That sound you just heard was the other shoe dropping.

For all the decades of talk about solutions to the debate over IHSA competition between public and private schools, the opportunity to launch it into oblivion has finally arrived.

The IHSA this week unveiled its annual list of submitted bylaw amendment proposals, and the West Suburban Conference stole the show with two options designed to blow up the current postseason coexistence of boundary and non-boundary schools (aka public and private schools).

One option, No. 8 of the 24 submitted proposals, creates a separate postseason for private schools in sports with three or more classes. That means they’d be competing for different state titles in football, girls volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball, etc.

In sports with three or four classes, one would be reserved for non-boundary schools. In football, there would be two classes with non-boundary schools among the eight total.

The other WSC proposal, No. 15, creates separate playoff paths for public and private schools in the initial stages of the postseason in sports with four semifinalists. One private school, emerging from a bracket apart from public schools, would receive an automatic semifinal berth. It’s a similar system to many years ago when Chicago Public League teams received automatic berths.

Because the plans compete against each other, one eventually will be pulled off the table. The proposal that survives this month’s town halls is bound to show up on the statewide ballot.

Then it’s in the schools’ hands. A simple majority in a December vote determines the fate of all proposals on the ballot. This time next year we could be living in a whole new IHSA world.

Whichever proposal lands on the ballot, it has a decent shot at winning over the member schools. The atmosphere throughout the state is too combative to think otherwise.

IHSA leadership is on record with the opinion they’d prefer private schools stay included with public schools in the state series. Which means, if given a choice, they’d prefer the option of an automatic non-boundary school qualifier in the semifinals.

But regardless of which proposal lands on the ballot, at what point do private schools ditch the IHSA and form their own athletic association? Is this the tipping point?

If the majority of IHSA member schools vote in exclusions for private schools, where’s the motivation for them to stay in the IHSA and adhere to rules continually designed to limit their competitiveness?

And if the private schools do leave the IHSA, imagine a landscape where they exist with their own eligibility and transfer rules. Imagine a limitless recruiting radius for student athletes.

That’s the pandora’s box about to burst open if either of these proposals pass. Non-boundary schools likely would remain in the IHSA with the automatic semifinal berth, but there’s less of a chance if they’re excluded from postseason competition with boundary schools.

The possibility overshadows a fascinating batch of additional bylaw amendment proposals. We’ll talk about the others in the coming weeks, but here’s a preview.

There’s a proposal to get rid of the new expanded football playoffs and return to a field of 256. There’s another to increase the non-boundary school enrollment multiplier from 1.65 to 2.5. And another to increase the threshold for a successful proposal vote from a simple majority to two-thirds of the ballots cast.

A whole new world, indeed.