Two big changes could be coming to the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association after the body’s general meeting next month.
Following Wednesday’s meeting of the Executive Committee, ballots concerning two issues — charter school classification and the sanctioning of girls ice hockey as an official sport — were officially approved to be distributed to all NJSIAA members for a vote at next month’s annual membership meeting.
Both proposals passed first readings back in January and will potentially be ratified by NJSIAA members next month if the ballots pass.
The new charter school classifications will take effect for the 2024-25 school year if passed by the full membership and will change how charter schools are grouped. Under the proposal, charter schools and co-op programs would be held from classification until every public school has been classified. Once every public non-co-op team is classified, charter programs and co-ops will then get classified based on a school’s sport offerings, northing number and enrollment.
“This is just to provide the stability for our public schools that have their own stand-alone programs, but also (for) our smaller schools that are getting negatively impacted by charter schools, where one year they have a varsity team, the next year they don’t or new ones pop up,” Maguire said back in January.
On Wednesday, Maguire voiced a similar sentiment.
“What this is hopefully going to do is minimize the variability that occurs from charter schools where the status of their varsity programs come and go each year as well as (from) co-ops, where the co-op may dissolve or the partners may change,” she said.
What the ballot proposal won’t do is classify charter schools as non-public schools or anything other than how they’ve been classified to date - at least not yet.
Following Wednesday’s meeting, however, Maguire said a newly formed ad hoc enrollment and classification committee will explore enrollment issues as it relates to public schools, including charter schools.
The committee, which will meet for the first time next week, is going to look at enrollment policies for all types of public schools — such as open enrollment, choice, or tuition schools — where public schools are pulling from outside their geographic boundary.
This issue became particularly prominent during this basketball season, as College Achieve Asbury Park, in its boys team’s first year of existence, found a loophole that allowed them to pull in students from outside their geographic charter, as first reported by NJ Advance Media’s Matt Stanmyre.
“Is it time that our classifications reflect that ability to enroll from beyond a defined geographic boundary,” Maguire said. “This review is going to go beyond charter schools. It’s also going to look at all types of policies and see what’s objective and what can we do to reflect these new enrollment numbers for the schools that allow schools to bring in students beyond their area.”
Maguire said the formation of this committee — which will include members of the NJSIAA’s executive and advisory committees — was not wholly prompted by College Achieve Charter’s dominance en route to the Group 1 title this year.
“It certainly [College Achieve’s run] brought it to people’s attention, but in and around certain parts of the state, we’ve had a lot of people reaching out to us about the status of them being Group 1 schools in certain sports but they’re pulling kids from a lot of other schools for purposes of sports,” Maguire said. “That just elevated attention to the issue, but for years, we’ve been getting a lot of concerns, especially from Group 1 schools.”
Following College Achieve’s 85-59 win in the Group 1 final, several Group 1 coaches voiced concerns about the program, with College Achieve coach Dave Boff even advocating for his school to have been placed in a different group ahead of time.
Maguire wouldn’t commit to a timeline as to when that enrollment/classifications committee would release its findings or present ideas to the executive committee. Maguire also said she’s looking at how other states classify their schools and could draw on ideas she sees working elsewhere..
“I really don’t want to put any timeline on it and I can’t even commit that anything could be in place for next year,” she said.
The other thing the proposal won’t do, which was a concern, is bump some Group 1 schools up to Group 2 because they had a charter school placed in their section. Now, all the public classifications will be set before charters are added based on enrollment and northing number.
The other ballot that got approved to be voted on at next month’s general meeting involved girls ice hockey, which is likely on track to become the state’s 34th sanctioned sport in the 2024-25 season, if the proposal passes the full membership vote.
Jake Aferiat can be reached at jaferiat@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @Jake_Aferiat.
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