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The PIAA Board of Directors will hold its annual summer meeting this Thursday and Friday in the Board Room at PIAA headquarters near Mechanicsburg. RodFrisco.com will live blog the meeting.
The PIAA Board meets Thursday and Friday in Mechanicsburg
First, the PIAA’s Strategic Planning Committee will meet at 4:30 on Thursday ahead of the full Board meeting to discuss the possibility of six classes in basketball and developing regional sites for the PIAA playoffs. The expanded classes for hoops has gone largely unnoticed (as compared to discussion of the same for football), and stems from the recent conversations about holding separate tournaments for public and private schools.
When the PIAA basketball steering committee met in June, it found that to have separate tournaments and stay within PIAA policy, the PIAA would have to massively expand classifications (upwards of 10) in order to lump all of the private schools into one class. That was quickly pooh-poohed, but the idea of 6 classes in basketball stuck a little bit, along with the idea of playing the state tournament at pre-selected regional sites (after the play-in round and first round).
Also, on Friday morning, the PIAA has scheduled a hearing with The Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School of Philadelphia regarding the alleged misconduct by MCSCS players, coaches and fans during a PIAA Class A playoff game with Reading Central Catholic on March 16 and counter-claims by MCSCS of racial bias on the part of the PIAA officials who worked the game. Now this could be a hearing. It is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.
(A story on the matter from Ted Silary of www.philly.com is here.)
There are six new board members for the 2010-2011 school year: Athletic directors rep Gerry Schwille of Northern High School in District 3, male officials’ rep Mike Hudak Jr. of Johnstown in District 6, female officials’ rep Cynthia Rinehart of York in District 3, private schools’ rep Hal Griffths of Bible Baptist in Shiremanstown of District 3, male parents’ rep Dale Myers of Hanover in District 3, and female parents’ rep Marylou Billings of District 10.
There are no new members among PIAA district representatives.
Does that seem like a lot of folks from District 3? It should; there are 9 PIAA Board members who live within District 3 boundaries: District 3 chairman Sam Elias (Hershey High AD), District 3 vice-chairman Ron Kennedy (Donegal HS AD), Junior High rep Doug Bohannon (Elco HS AD), Pa. Department of Education rep John Tommasini (lives in the Central Dauphin School District), School Superintendents’ rep Dr. Brian Small (recently retired from the Northern York School District), Schwille, Rinehart, Griffiths, and Myers.
Potentially, that could be the most powerful voting bloc in PIAA Board history. Should a piece of PIAA legislation crop up that adversely affects District 3, that group voting as one plus two more members could block an issue that requires a two-thirds majority vote. There are 31 Board members, and a two-thirds passage requires 21 affirmative votes.
But I hasten to add that I don’t think they will become a District 3 voting bloc. I know each of these reps and can attest to their integrity. They will vote their constituency. Indeed, there have been votes in the past where the direct District 3 reps has split their votes. It’s just that I cannot recall of such a high number of Board members from a given PIAA district serving at any given time. That’s just about 30 percent of the Board.
You could even say a 10th member fits into the District 3 category. School Boards’ rep Thomas Gentzel lives in the Harrisburg area, but PSBA is more often than not represented at Board meetings by alternate voting rep Timothy Allwein; I do not know where Mr. Allwein resides. Even so, PSBA’s vote has always been either directly related to its constituency or, absent that, in the best interest of PIAA as a whole.
Just for the record, other PIAA districts have multiple votes, if you will, on the Board based on residence:
District 1 – three (PIAA president and District 1 chairman Rod Stone of Central Bucks South, vice-chairman Dr. Randy Ireson of Glen Mills and PSBA rep Norman Long of Downingtown)
District 4 – three (District 4 chairman Dr. Jim Zack of Shamokin, coaches’ rep Ron Kanaskie of Danville and girls’ athletics rep and reported former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Beth Schulze of Athens. Beth, we still need proof. That means pictures.)
District 6 – two (district chairman Ray Wotkowski of Forest Hills and Hudak)
District 7 – three (chairman Rich Constantine of Uniontown, vice-chairman Jack Fullen of Blackhawk and treasurer Jon Vallina of Burgettstown)
District 10 – two (chairman Wally Blucas of Erie, a consultant to Kennedy Catholic HS, and Billings)
District 11 – two (chairman Jack Wabby, retired principal at Blue Mountain HS and principals’ rep Dennis Nemes of Northwestern Lehigh)
District 12 – two (chairman Robert Coleman and vice-chairman Michael Hawkins, both of Philadelphia)
But no one has nine.
