Last week, we talked how the Representative Assembly of the WIAA would be considering a proposal that would help level the playing field by using socioeconomic factors.
Next week, the Representative Assembly will vote on a proposal that will allow schools with a high percentage of students on free/reduced lunch to lower the enrollment number used to place them into one of six classifications.
Under the proposal, any school with a percentage of its student body on free/reduced lunch that is 10 percent above the state’s average may reduce its enrollment number by an amount equal to the amount it exceeds the state average.
So a school 10 percent above the state average would reduce its enrollment by 10 percent. Schools 20 percent above the state average would reduce its enrollment number by 20 percent, and so on, up to a maximum of 40 percent.
I wanted to see what kind of impact that might have. I took the free/reduced lunch numbers from a 2017-18 report by the state office of superintendent of public instruction and applied them to enrollment numbers the WIAA used to position schools in the last reclassification process.
If applied three years ago, only 15 schools in classes 1A to 4A would have seen enough enrollment reduction to allow them to move down one class if they chose.
Only one of those schools — Kent-Meridian — was located on the western side of the state, where the cost of living is much higher.
And that’s the flaw of this proposal. It’s applies a blanket solution to a state that is wildly diverse, and in the process, leaves out several schools that are in desperate need of relief.
It’s as if the WIAA is trying to measure the reasons some schools struggle, instead of just measuring their struggles directly.
It’s a lifeguard trying to figure out why a drowning victim didn’t receive swim lessons, instead of throwing a rope.
It also measures schools from one end of the state against schools from another that they may never face on the athletic field or court, instead of measuring it against teams in its own league that it faces two or three times a season.
Take Heritage, for example. It has a percentage of students on free/reduced lunch that is below the 53 percent threshold that would allow it to receive a reduction in its enrollment number. But the Timberwolves’ percentage is significant higher than the more affluent schools in their league.
As a result, the Timberwolves have struggled. If we measure the eight team sports (boys and girls soccer, boys and girls basketball, football, volleyball, baseball and softball) since the start of the last reclassification process in the 2016-17 school year, we’ll find that Heritage has an average winning percentage of .157 in 4A Greater St. Helens League contests.
Battle Ground would be next at .301, followed by Union (.586), Skyview (.629) and Camas (.705). If you ranked those schools by highest percentage of free/reduced lunch, the schools would rank in the same order — Heritage, Battle Ground, Union, Skyview, Camas.
It’s no coincidence. If applied to the 3A and 2A GSHLs, it produces similar results.
I’d expect if applied elsewhere in the state, it would produce similar results.
When this rule proposal was first drafted, it included a provision that would also increase enrollment numbers for schools with low free/reduced numbers, potentially moving those schools up in class.
But that provision was removed because of a desire not to punish the more affluent schools.
I guess I have a different definition of punishment. To me, asking schools with such a clear competitive advantage to work harder at filling their trophy cases is not a punishment.
A real punishment is relegating an incoming freshman to four years of going 3-17 with one 40-point defeat after another.
The WIAA has been dishing out that punishment to several schools for many years by doing nothing about it.
Heritage hasn’t qualified for a state tournament in a team sport since 2014 (baseball). The state drought for schools like Fort Vancouver and Hudson’s Bay have lasted more than a decade. There are other schools in the state that haven’t sent a team to a state tournament since before current seniors at those schools were born.
But the solution is so simple.
Form a competition committee. Classify schools by their enrollment. Any school that felt it was improperly placed could petition the committee to move down one class.
Schools that struggle know where they belong.
Each school could make its own case by providing data on free/reduced lunch percentages, declining enrollment, participation rates, and most importantly, direct evidence of its struggles on the field or court.
If you think taking a struggling athletic program down one class will suddenly turn it into a state superpower, past evidence shows that’s simply not true.
But you counter any such worries by making the move down provisional, something that can be reviewed after a year or two.
What you’d likely find is that struggling schools wouldn’t be superpowers, just simply more competitive.
As one local administrator so rightly observed: “It’s hard to build momentum and tradition when you don’t really compete with” other schools in your own league.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep editor for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
