The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is exploring updates to its private school enrollment classification process and two IHSA administrators told WRMJ they expect a change to the waiver application.
The conversation reached a fever pitch following the football state championship weekend in November, which saw non-boundaried schools win seven of the eight state championships and outscore public school opponents 283-76 in six private vs. public matchups.
In boys basketball, three of the four state champions and nine of the 16 state finalists were private schools.
Currently, private schools’ enrollments are multiplied by 1.65 in football if the school has won three or more playoff games in the previous two seasons combined. If a non-boundaried school has won less than three postseason games over the previous two seasons, the multiplier is waived, and that school is classified based on its true enrollment.
In boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball, a private school’s enrollment is multiplied if it has won a state trophy or won at least three regional and sectional championships combined in the previous two school years. If a school has not done that, the multiplier is waived, and that school is classified based on its true enrollment.
The IHSA took initial action in December, changing from a two-year enrollment cycle to a one-year cycle. The change means the IHSA will use enrollments collected by the Illinois State Board of Education in September of 2024 to determine each school’s classification enrollment for the 2025-26 school year. With the two-year cycle, the classification enrollments for the 2024-25 school year were the average enrollments from 2021-22 and 2022-23.
IHSA Assistant Executive Director Chris Schwarz joined WRMJ’s Sportsline Saturday at the State Farm Center and said an update to the waiver process could help alleviate issues.
IHSA Assistant Executive Director Matt Troha also was a guest on Sportsline Saturday. He expects an update to the multiplier waiver to come out of this month’s IHSA board meeting but notes it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution with success and the areas non-boundaried schools draw from needing to be taken into account.
Troha also said the IHSA has asked for feedback from member schools about football classification enrollment being based on the average enrollment of each school’s regular season opponents.
The IHSA board met Saturday morning, but no changes have been announced yet.