The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has been in charge of high school athletics in the state of Illinois for over a century. Recently, there have been altercations between public schools and private schools. 

  The argument is that public schools should not be playing private schools with similar enrollment numbers. This is how things have been for years. 

  It wasn’t until recently that people demanded restructure of the system. People believed that the cutoff numbers before they move up a division for private schools should be much lower than Public enrollment schools.

  Private schools had the ability to recruit from all over the state and even the country, while public schools were forced to stay within their enrollment limits. This offered an unfair advantage in the IHSA sports scene for years. 

  On average, seven out of the eight division state championships were won by private teams. Public school activists roared about this and demanded change.

  The IHSA tried to make change by lowering the cutoff numbers for the first time in 2018. While this did have a noticeable effect on the outcome as the season as well as distributing the success ratio of private compared to public, the advantage was still noticeably present.

  It was decided that enrollment numbers would not be the issue. Restricting enrollment numbers for the school had little effect due to the funding that these schools received with experienced coaches and state of the art facilities. 

  Football head coach Jon Schlemmer said, “I think having enrollment year by year is for the best. The 1.65 multiplier is good in my opinion.” This rule significantly benefits the public schools in Illinois. 

  Offensive lineman coach Isaac Kinnicutt stated, “I would say it’s better that IHSA is looking at school enrollment numbers year by year instead of a certain number of years as school enrollment changes constantly and a year by year gets a better idea of likewise schools competing against similar sized schools in the state playoffs. I think both the multiplier and success factor changes are better for year to year classifications.”

  IHSA was forced to take action on these powerhouses. The verdict agreed upon was to raise the division of teams that consistently were above their competition and won two state championships in the past 3 years. 

  Junior Ryan Gebhardt said, “This is a well overdue change and now teams should be competing fairly with the implementation of this rule.”

  While this rule may not satisfy everyone, this is a fair solution to the prive schools that have been dominating IHSA for years.