Proposed change in sports rules aired.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

SALEM - Fans of a proposal to give school districts more power over how high school sports are governed testified Friday that safety, academics and cost should be considered ahead of competitive equity.

Officials from the Eugene School District and a Eugene parents group told members of the state Board of Education that they support the draft rule change, which stemmed from the controversial changes that moved some Eugene schools into a league with Medford, Grants Pass and Roseburg. Some Eugene parents and school officials say it's inconvenient and unsafe for students to have to be driven to those distant communities for games. The new rule proposal could make it harder for leagues to be realigned against the wishes of local school officials.

But members of the Oregon School Activities Association, the private, nonprofit group that governs high school sports, spoke out against the change. They said the current process works well and shouldn't be changed because a few districts were forced into conference groups they don't like.

The current rules are "very democratic, and like any democracy, when decisions are made, some people like them and some people don't," said OSAA Vice President Craig Roessler, superintendent of the Silver Falls School District. "Whenever there's reclassification, somebody likes the outcome and somebody doesn't."

Eugene officials have made it clear they don't like what happened when the OSAA added two new leagues based on enrollment and put South Eugene and Sheldon high schools in a league with the Southern Oregon schools. Instead of being in the same league with other local schools, those teams now have a six-hour, 340-mile round-trip drive to league games.

Pat Latimer, the Eugene district athletic director, said that has resulted in higher costs and more time out of class for students.

"When I've got kids coming home at 3 o'clock in the morning and having to get up at 7 o'clock in the morning to get to school, there's something wrong with that," he said.

The dispute over league reclassification prompted the state Board of Education and state schools Superintendent Susan Castillo to take a look at how sports are governed. Castillo last year reviewed the reclassification decision but found that she had no legal authority to overrule it.

The proposed change would require the OSAA to put safety, academics and cost issues first when making changes to sports leagues. The OSAA now considers those factors along with six other criteria, including school size and competitive equity.

The changes also would require majority approval of reclassification by the schools in each division and require all schools in a single district to be in the same division unless the district school board agrees to a different assignment.

The proposal also would let some sunshine in on the OSAA, which as a private organization isn't subject to state open meetings and public records laws and can make decisions behind closed doors. The draft rule would require the organization to keep minutes of its meetings and submit those to the state, which would make them available as public records.

OSAA policy is voted on by an assembly that is made up of some, but not all, of the school districts that are members of the organization.

OSAA critics say the organization puts too much emphasis on creating a level playing field for sports teams and not enough on the needs of students or schools.

But organization officials say they have always taken academics, safety and cost into account and have developed rules that do the greatest good for the greatest number.

Tom Welter, OSAA's executive director, said the organization opposes the proposed rules and has submitted a draft revision of its own that addresses issues of openness, state authority and other concerns.

Jeremy Lyon, an at-large member of the OSAA board and superintendent of the Hillsboro School District, warned of the consequences if the state's draft rule is adopted. He said it would give a minority of school districts veto power over any changes and end up leaving small schools in conferences with much larger rivals.

But Joel DeVore, a Eugene attorney and parent, said local districts should have more say in how the lines are drawn and said that under the new rules, a majority of conference members would be needed in

order to block changes.

"If something is so wrong you can't satisfy the majority of schools in a classification, there's something wrong with the plan," he said.

State Board of Education member Steve Bogart said that after reviewing the testimony and making any changes, the board probably will vote on whether to begin the formal rule-making process next month. That would require another public hearing, probably in March, before taking final action on the proposal in April.