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Lawmakers sack proposal that would’ve allowed SCHSL to address charter school concerns

Sam Wolfe/Special To The State

An effort intended to give the South Carolina High School League greater authority to deal with fair-play concerns regarding charter and private schools has failed.

On Thursday, S.C. lawmakers removed from the state’s annual budget a proviso that was meant to give the entity that governs public school athletics more power to address and affect competitive balance.

That proviso — or a one-year law — was crafted in response to charter and private schools dominating small-school athletics and because of criticism that they have a competitive advantage in how they operate differently than their public school counterparts.

The lawmakers’ decision means that proposal is dead, and it likely means any efforts to address the competitive balance concerns will have to wait until 2024.

As it stands, existing law prevents the S.C. High School League from making changes that directly target its charter and private school members. There are 219 SCHSL member schools split into five classifications. Of those, 15 are public charter schools and four are private schools. And there are new charter school members being added for the next two school years.

Two charters, Gray Collegiate Academy in West Columbia and Oceanside Collegiate in Mount Pleasant — along with the private schools that compete in the public league — have been increasingly dominant in sports in recent years. Critics say the charters that are sports-focused attract more and better athletes, build powerful teams and have an advantage in enrollment with what amounts to a statewide attendance zone.

And because they cap that enrollment, they compete for state championships against the smaller and traditionally rural high schools in Class 1A and Class 2A.

This school year, 13 of the 16 team fall and winter state championships in Class A and 2A were won by charter or private schools. Teams from Oceanside Collegiate won four more state titles this spring. Oceanside defeated Gray for both the 2A boys soccer and baseball championships.

The proviso that was removed Thursday said that “the interscholastic athletic association has the authority to make adjustments in the classifications to promote competitive balance.” The measure had passed through the S.C. House in May via a 64-46 vote. It wasn’t settled until Thursday’s conference committee meeting between the House and Senate regarding the final state budget.

It wasn’t immediately known what next steps, if any, the S.C. High School League would take to address to simmering issue.

Realignment happens in the state every two years and is the main way the SCHSL currently can address competitive balance. But realignment can only move schools up or down in classification based on enrollment changes, and it doesn’t address any competition concerns with charter and private schools.

Any change to the league’s constitution must be introduced by January of a given year and then go through a legislative process that culminates in a spring vote by high school league member schools. Any proposals for change would be initiated by the schools or from a school district and not from the SCHSL itself.

The two most-talked-about ideas for dealing with the competitive balance concerns have been:

Moving the charter and private schools to their own classification and their own playoffs so they’re competing against each other for state championships.

Enacting some sort of “multiplier” system that’s either based on athletic success or an enrollment factor that would make a school “play up” and into a higher classification and face tougher competition. Georgia, Tennessee and about 20 other states have some sort of multiplier system in place. Despite the multiplier in Georgia, private and city schools still won the majority of state championships during the school year.

Any attempts to shift charters and privates into their own class and their own playoffs would likely be met with litigation.

An existing S.C. proviso “guarantees that private or charter schools are afforded the same rights and privileges that are enjoyed by all other members of the association” and that participation cannot be restricted in “state playoffs or championships based solely on its status as a private school or charter school.”

The High School League on May 3 took the rare stuff of publicly asking for legislators’ help in changing or removing that proviso.

— The State’s Dwayne McLemore contributed to this story