buzzy

You are correct in that students to "drop out" of the catholic school programs. However, if you ran the same numbers for the public schools you would see the same trend. At my small independent school in central Kentuck we will enroll a freshman class of around 90 students and when they graduate the class will be somewhere around 80. That is pretty consistent every year.

This is really poor math on your part - the K-8 number represents kids in 9 grades - high school represents kids in 4 grades. At the elementary/middle school level there are 1300+ kids per grade. There are 1500 kids per grade at the high school. Where did those 200+ kids per grade come from, that is not attrition, that is addition. In a 4 year average at the elementary/middle level there are 5200 kids. In high school there are 6000 kids. That is an average increase in 800 kids at the high school that are not at the elementary and middle schools. Where did those kids come from? Again, this is not attrition it is addition.

Please read my post again - students who attend a non-public school(whether parochial or not) during the 7th and 8th grade are not subject to eligibility rules. This is certainly a compromise to kicking the privates out of the post season. It is also a compromise to saying kids had to go to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade in a particular feeder school - they just have to have attended a non-public school to be eligible as freshmen Here is the scenario that drives publics crazy - true one too. Player A spends all of his young life playing basketball with players B, C, D, and E. This includes playing in a public middle school. Player A (for all intents and purposes has never even seen the inside of a catholic church or catholic school). When it comes time to go to H.S. player A decides to attend Catholic high school 35 miles away to play on an all-star basketball team that has kids from all over. 4 years later players B, C, D, and E finish a senior season setting records for school wins and having a big time - first round of the region they draw the 35 mi. away Catholic H.S. and its all-star basketball team that includes player A who lives 100 yards from their public h.s. They are beaten and walk across the floor to shake hands with long-time friend who was just 'burning' to get that good catholic education. Some see that as okay - those kids saw it as unfair. And while the Catholic H.S. never recruited, the parents of the kids on the basketball team certainly did and they were not extolling the benefits of a catholic education - they talked about the basketball program and the great facilities. Public schools are required to education any and all who live within their attendance boundaries. To say that you MUST go to school but you cannot play is a tough sell.

Compromise: (applied only to private schools that are AA or larger) - Attendance "radius" is the same as the local school district. Louisville - public schools have open enrollment and can draw from entire county. Private schools would have the same radius. Lexington (arbitrary #s here) Average "radius" for Dunbar, Lafayette, Tates Creek, Bryan Station and Henry Clay is 12 miles (again, arbitrary). Lex. Cath then has a radius of 12 miles - exceptions can occur for feeder schools outside of that 12 miles (like Good Shepherd in Frankfort) but those students (in the feeder outside of the 12 miles) may not participate at the High School at any level until they have graduated from 8th grade. All non-public middle schools within that radius could be considered feeder schools for this proposal. Students who attend a non-public middle school for both the 7th and 8th grade are not subject to eligibility rules in regards to Freshmen. Students who attend a public middle school in 8th grade are ineligible at all levels of play for their first year if they enroll in a non-public high school.

The money that is paid in taxes by 1 individual does not come near paying for a single child to be educated. Public school taxes are there b/c our forefathers were smart enough to know the importance of educating everyone. It was important they said, that even those who do not have kids in school should also contribute (there are a lot of single and childless people who also pay taxes).

There are only 48 schools so there would be 16 regions with three schools in each? More likely 16 districts and 4 regions with the four region winners coming to Rupp Arena as part of the sweet 16. Unless of course, you were just being facetious.

tell me who schools like Sayre and Whitefield Trinity play when they are no longer allowed to play KHSAA member schools. Again and again you guys think you rule the world and everyone wants to be like you - why would HHS and Male want to consistenly compete against Trinity and St. X in basketball when they have the rest of the state of Kentucky to compete against. 1. This does not just affect Louisville and Northern Ky - there are private schools in other parts of the state 2. It is not all about football.

You think there would be sixteen regional games coming to rupp arena to play in a private school state tournament? I think there would be four. Two games would be played on Friday afternoon of the public sweet sixteen and the finals played on Saturday afternoon. More games, same days, MORE money - not less. As for Trinity bringing a LOT of people, if you take Trinity out someone else brings a lot of people. The financial impact is not that much.

It amazes me that after the last few days some on here still think the KHSAA is the group of people that sit in the offices in Lexington. The KHSAA was what met in Lexington yesterday. The member schools. The people that sit in Lexington are the staff - they enforce the rules and run the state championships. Here are the revenue figures for 04-05 for the KHSAA Baseball 96,816 Boys Basketball 1,514,523 girls Basketball 310,000 football 249,064 soccer 76,179 Other sports 244,115 corp. sponsorship 275,359 Girls basketball brings in more money than football. I do not see how this police is going so drastic to the money situation at the KHSAA. The rural public schools bring tons more fans to the state tournament than do the privates.

It is not a reversal. All students are ruled ineligible. That is the rule. If you change schools you sit out a year - been there forever. What HC probably had to do was prove that the kid met an exception to the rule. Again the rule is no play for one year if you change schools. Then there are specific exceptions.

How do you get better when you can only play with the kids in your district? You can have the greatest coach in the world and the greatest facilities in the world but if you happen to have a limited number of athletes you are not going to get better and you cannot talk to anyone about coming to your school unless they are already at your feeder school. How do you get better? You seem to think there is some magical formula - you apparently have never coached a high school team in your life - it comes down to athletes. If you don't have them, you won't win and when your enrollment is limited to a certain area (like in the public schools) you compete with what you have. If you get lucky a couple of times and have some success, people will amazingly "move into your district" but if you never catch that luck charm when all the stars align you simply go with what you got.

According to KHSAA rules, developed by member schools, - no member school team could play another team in the state that had the opportunity to be a member school but chose not to. So . . . if the privates jumped out of the KHSAA then they would have to play each other and out of state competition - even during the regular season. What I don't understand is how YOU (general) cannot see that Lex Christian and Berea are different - they play by different rules, the only thing that connects them is size - everything else is different - why should they have to compete?

It is not a matter of choice. Frankfort relies on taxes and that is how we fund everything. We can't charge our district kids tons of money to come to school. "Free and appropriate." Private schools can raise tuition or often go to a sugar daddy. Your statement implies that we spend money on things other than sports - that is not true - we spend money on necessities and then we see what is left. Our district is really rather benevolent in the amount of support it does give our athletic programs, and I am happy to be a part of it. Some surrounding districts spend even less than ours - it is not a level playing field when trying to compete with the private schools.

You apparently don't understand how school taxes work. First of all there is limit on the increase in revenue from year to year, so you can't all of a sudden see a huge increase. Secondly, if you decide to increase more than the limit it is subject to a recall vote by the public (as is your seat on the board of ed.) Lastly, taxes are limited by the tax base. Go back and read the Frankfort post.

The "just work harder and build better facilities and hire better coaches" attitude is crap! Frankfort High School is a small urban high school in the state's capital city. It currently enrolls about 350 students 150 of them will play sports this year. We do not have a large tax base, so the money we collect in taxes has to go to facilities (schools) and personnel. We own two athletic facilities, a gym and football field. We have no solid weight room, no baseball/softball hitting facility, no track, no fitness center no whatever. The board of education gave us enough money for uniforms this year and pays for transportation and upkeep of the facilities we have. Now we can try as hard as we want, and we can work ouselves to death, but we will never have the facilities that LCA or LexCath has. Spending money on fitness centers and weight rooms is not as important to us as hiring new teachers. We have a small pot of money and not a long list of wealthy benefactors. We compete with what we have, and simply stated the playing field is not fair. Our kids cannot afford private coaches and strength trainers so our coaches work extremely hard to be all things to these kids. Why should they not have the ability to compete against people in like circumstances. They did not choose where they live or their economic situation - they are kids looking for a chance to be special and why shouldn't we give them every opportunity. Many of you would suggest that our kids simply accept scholarships from LCA and LexCath and go to those schools. Then what happens to the sense of community and rallying around your "home" team on Friday nights. Furthermore, to even begin to suggest that parents from the private schools do not recruit kids is crazy. A parent of a LexCath kid sat in a gym in Frankfort and talked to the parents of an 8th grader while they watched his brother play basketball for the local team. He talked about the great facilities and all the opportunities for the young man. Fortunately those parents were loyal to the local school and the kid stayed around and he is thriving - that is where most of the recruiting takes place, and it is not a violation b/c that parent is not an "officer" of the school. It is so easy to be one of the haves and to tell everybody just to work harder and spend more time on it - We work hard, but we started way behind, and we do have quality coaches. The KHSAA is not some weird organization the formed itself, it was created by the schools as a governance organization and the schools all vote on the by-laws. It will be the schools that change this rule, if it is changed and not the KHSAA.