PIAA's new transfer rules — Are they enough?

   It's no secret that the PIAA has been under a lot of scrutiny for some time regarding the issue of competitive balance between public and private, or non-boundary, schools.
   Earlier today, the state's athletic association Board of Directors broke its protocol to enact new transfer rules which take effect on August 6, one week before official practices for the fall sports season begin.
   Here's a quick breakdown:
   1) If any student athlete in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade decides to transfer to another school, he or she is permitted to compete in regular season competition, but will be banned from all postseason play in any sport that they competed at the year before at the previous school.
   2) The board also approved a new competitive balance formula, based on postseason success and number of transfers. Schools will receive points for certain advancement in PIAA playoff brackets, and those points along with a given number of transfers over a two-year period will require a move up in classification. The numbers will be used to determine 2020-21 classifications. Keep in mind that this formula is only being used for two sports — football and basketball.
   This is the biggest step that the PIAA has made in regards to trying to "level the playing field." And I do think the Board of Directors deserves credit for tightening up the transfer rules, and for suspending its protocol to enact the first measure as early as this year.
   That said, it's not near a total fix of the issues regarding public vs. private. While I did not speak with anyone on the record about the PIAA's new rules, I gather that many public districts will see this as a band-aid type of measure that won't produce their desired long-term solutions.
   Next Tuesday, superintendents and other administrators from over 100 public school districts are expected to be in attendance at a meeting set up in State College. The public vs. private debate is at the heart of the matter, and who knows where it leads.
   It should be noted that many of the schools named on a list of probable attendees (published Tuesday on pennlive.com) are from the central and western parts of the state. A number of administrators from schools in the east, notably Districts 3 and 11, have already been quoted as saying that they would not attend next week's gathering.
   In the past 10 years, the non-boundary schools have won 64 percent of team championships in boys basketball and 59 percent in girls basketball, with football basically at a 50-50 split between public and private programs.
   While those numbers might not be as high as thought by some on the outside, it's a rallying call by many public districts to at least get together and discuss options, with the list of meeting attendees rising drastically since such a meeting was proposed.
   The Centre Daily Times reported that the Bellefonte school board, at its meeting last night, passed a resolution calling on the PIAA to consider separating public and private postseason competition. The resolution says that the state should put public schools in four classes (A, 2A, 3A, 4A) with private schools in two classes (5A, 6A).
   At the very least from the public school angle, the time for complaints seems over and a call to action is imminent.
   Will it eventually mean separate playoffs? Will it mean schools leaving the PIAA and creating a new governing body for state athletics?
   Obviously, I can't answer that. But what I can say is this topic is as hot as hype is for the upcoming sports season itself.