Half an OSAA loaf.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The State Board of Education has made modest improvements in the way that high school athletic leagues will be restructured in the future. But the board failed to make the bold changes necessary to fix the current six-tier plan that imposes unnecessary hardships on schools in three of the state's largest communities - and to prevent similarly flawed plans in the future.

Last Thursday, the board unanimously adopted an administrative rule change that will require the Oregon School Activities Association to "consider and address" student safety, loss of class time and costs to school districts the next time it reshuffles athletic leagues.

That's a positive change, although it remains to be seen exactly how the OSAA and state Board of Education will interpret the "consider and address" language in future reclassifications. It's a watered-down version of an earlier proposal that would have left no doubts that safety, class time and travel costs must be the three top public priorities in any future redistricting efforts.

The original version would have prevented the OSAA from ever again sacrificing the interests of a few districts while creating reclassification plan that meets the needs of the rest of the state. That's what the OSAA did last year when it created a six-tier reclassification that plopped Sheldon and South Eugene high schools in a league with distant Medford and drop-kicked Salem-Keizer schools into a league with Redmond on the other side of the Cascades. It's disturbingly unclear if the weaker rule change approved by the state board would have prevented the current flawed plan from being approved - or if it will prevent other districts from being hurt in the future.

Under the new rule, the OSAA will be required to keep minutes of its meetings, which will then become public records. That's an improvement over the OSAA's current black-box deliberations. But the board should have approved earlier proposals that would have required that redistricting work sessions be open to the public - or, at the very least, open to representatives from the OSAA's member districts.

Meanwhile, the Senate Education Committee last week set aside three bills, including one from Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo, that would have gone further than the board-approved rule change. While it's clear there are not enough votes to pass the bills this session, the sponsors should consider reviving a proposal next year that more clearly establishes academics, cost and safety as redistricting priorities, that requires all OSAA redistricting meetings to be open to the public and that gives the state schools superintendent final say on realignments.

For Eugene, Salem-Keizer and Medford school districts, the last hope for changing the current league alignment is now their lawsuit, which is pending in the Oregon Court of Appeals. With a ruling still months away, students, coaches, parents and fans can look forward to spending plenty of more time on the road. Going from here to there. And back again.