TSSAA tables proposal for public-private split

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Arkansas-SEMO Live Blog
photo TSSAA logo

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - After more than an hour of discussion Wednesday morning, the TSSAA's nine-member Legislative Council voted to table a proposal to split all private schools into a separate athletic division from public schools.

During the discussion prior to the vote, TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress used a power-point presentation to lay out several scenarios that could negatively effect the public schools and asked, "if you do this now, what will you do in two years when the complaint is about how to legislate city schools, special school districts and magnet schools that are winning most of the championships, which will be the case. Where does it end?

"Are you comfortable making a fundamental change in how the organization is structure, after 89 years?"

Representatives from both public and private schools then spoke out before the council vote 7-2 to establish a committee to study the proposal, then present it to all member schools and polling them on how they would vote.

No timetable was given for when the proposal will be voted on, but most council members agreed it would likely be later this year.