KSHSAA’s private high school sports multiplier stalled in Kansas legislation. What’s next?

A proposal that would drastically alter the landscape of Kansas high school sports through the implementation of a private school multiplier has seemingly stalled out in legislation.

The proposal had the necessary support from Kansas State High School Activities Association member schools and was approved by the Kansas Board of Education, but failed to gain traction after the bill was introduced to the House Education Committee in January.

In order for the proposal to have a chance at passing this legislation session, House Bill No. 2003 had to be recommended for consideration to the Senate by Friday, Feb. 24, a deadline known as “Turnaround Day” in Kansas legislature when all House of Representatives bills must move to the Senate and vice versa. According to the bill’s history on kslegislature.org, no action has been taken since a Jan. 19 hearing was conducted with speakers on both sides of the issue.

“In legislature, you can never say anything is 100% certain,” said Jamie Finkeldei, associate superintendent of the Catholic Diocese of Wichita. “There’s always a chance it comes back up, but I think it’s safe to say it’s 99% dead.”

A KSHSAA official confirmed to The Eagle that it is the organization’s belief that the bill has died in committee, while Paola principal Jeff Hines, a driving force behind the proposal for years, is also not holding out hope the bill would pass in 2023.

“I’m not surprised it died in the committee,” Hines said. “What I’ve learned through this process is that it seems like anything that gets through the legislation, they’re going to want to mull over it several times until it gets to a point where they pass it through.”

Here are answers to some questions that arise from the fallout of the bill losing steam in legislation.

What is KSHSAA’s private school multiplier proposal?

The proposal would apply a unique three-pronged multiplier formula to private schools to potentially adjust their enrollment numbers when determining classifications.

The three factors for determining the multiplier are school location, socioeconomic status and team state championships. Essentially, private schools that win a lot of team state titles, are located in metropolitan areas and have minimal low-income students would be moving up a classification.

The proposal would bump private schools like St. James Academy, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bishop Carroll and Kapaun Mt. Carmel from Class 5A to 6A, while Bishop Miege would join 5A and Wichita Collegiate would move to 4A.

Private schools, which make up less than 8% of KSHSAA membership, have won nearly 24% of possible team state championships in the last five years.

Why did KSHSAA multiplier proposal stall out in Kansas legislation?

In order to open the door for the proposal to become legal, the bill had to alter how the current state statute reads.

The bill attempted to make a three-word change to the statute, allowing the KSHSAA to classify high schools by both enrollment “and other means.”

While it was obvious to the KSHSAA-appointed committee that crafted the proposal what that slight alteration meant, the House Education Committee balked at how vague the wording was.

“Legislature did not like how open-ended it was presented to them by KSHSAA,” Hines said. “They took it as if we were asking for a blank slate, meaning we could do anything we want with classifications moving forward. So that’s why it wasn’t a surprise that they didn’t codify it exactly as it was written because a lot of them were afraid of the what if. What if we give them a blank checkbook? What else are they going to do and not have to come back to us for approval?”

While the proposal gained the necessary support from member schools in the KSHSAA, the attempt to address the competitive imbalance in sports between public and private high schools in Kansas failed to resonate in a different arena.

Hines was complimentary of the job that KSHSAA executive director Bill Faflick did in his presentation to the committee, but felt like the issue is too complex to be explained in less than an hour.

“What stood out to me was the legislators are clueless about what the proposal does and honestly to no fault of their own,” Hines said. “Unless you’re an avid sports fan of Kansas high school athletics or have a great understanding of how classifications work and the competitive unbalance, you’re just not going to be familiar with it. They’ve never been exposed to it, so it’s difficult to put your name behind something when you don’t understand it.”

What happens next with Kansas high school sports?

While the proposal likely died in the committee for this legislative session, it remains on the table to be picked back up again — with alterations — in January 2024 for the next legislation session.

Think of it as a five-step process. The proposal has completed the first three steps by gaining approval from KSHSAA member schools, then the KSHSAA Board of Directors, then the Kansas Board of Education.

Because the proposal failed in the fourth step doesn’t mean it has to begin the process all over again from the first step. It just means the proposal begins the process on the fourth step all over again.

“The KSHSAA side of things has already passed something, so now we’re just waiting for legislation to act,” Hines said. “There is no running clock on this thing. It’s not like where we have to get it through in three years or we have to start all over again.”

Hines said he hopes to hear from Rep. Adam Thomas, the chair on the House Committee on Education, to receive specific feedback on what the proposal needs to iron out before the next legislation session.

In a statement sent to The Eagle, the KSHSAA remained committed to enacting the change its member schools desire.

“The KSHSAA leadership remains committed to addressing classification concerns of member schools,” the statement read. “While we hoped for more formal discussion and action to move this proposal forward, we will review concerns as they are shared and work toward an eventual outcome which will allow the Association to meet the needs of our stakeholders.

What changes to the KSHSAA multiplier proposal could come?

An obvious change will be how the proposal attempts to change the state statute, as the three-word alteration of adding “and other means” was a clear no-go for legislators.

Drilling down on the specifics of “other means” will be a priority.

Legislators were also miffed by the notion that a boys golf team racking up team state championships could impact the girls basketball team playing up a classification at a school under the current multiplier, which accounts for total team titles won by a school, regardless of gender.

“We may have to drill it down to individual activities or by gender,” Hines said. “But KSHSAA’s stance is that when you have sports that share coaches, like wrestling, you don’t want to have the boys participating in one classification and the girls participating in another meet that is three hours away.

“I think KSHSAA will be willing to form a committee to address some of those concerns and come back with modifications.”

Another option would be to apply the championship multiplier to all schools, public or private, and to do it just for the specific sport. This would impact a dominant team like the Andale football team, which has won 51 straight games and four straight Class 3A titles.

It has also been suggested an easier method for enacting change would be to rewrite the statute to allow KSHSAA member schools to voluntarily move up a classification. According to sources with knowledge of the situation, officials at Bishop Miege and St. Thomas Aquinas — arguably the two most athletically successful private schools in Kansas — have indicated to the KSHSAA that they would voluntarily move up a classification if given the opportunity.

But if major changes are made to the current proposal, it’s likely that a new proposal would have to be made and the five-step process would have to start all over.

For now, Hines is optimistic the current proposal can be passed — just not this year.

“We’re going to spend this summer trying to get the right players educated on this, so they can report back to the members of their party and try to get this thing off the ground,” Hines said. “It’s a process.”