CHSAA Legislative Council Meets April 18

***Press Release***

CHSAA Board of Directors to meet April 17

Aurora, Colo. – The final of two Colorado High School Activities Association Legislative Council Meetings is slated for Thursday, April 18, at the Red Lion Inn in Aurora, located at I-225 and Parker Road. The Meeting will be at 8:30 a.m. and will be aired live on CHSAA.tv. The CHSAA Board of Directors will meet Wednesday, April 17 in advance of the meeting.

The CHSAA Legislative Council is the body that determines the rules for the student participants in the state of Colorado and its 70 members represent all the individual athletic conferences, along with representatives from the Colorado Association of School Boards, Colorado Athletic Directors Association and Colorado Association of Secondary School Administrators. They will be voting on one constitutional proposal, five administrative proposals and four sports/activities proposals, along with four administrative committee reports, two activities committee reports and eight sport committee reports. In addition, the Legislative Council will vote on nominations to replace members on the Board of Directors and for President of the Board of Directors.

All Proposals and Committee reports that will be voted on can be found on the CHSAA website (www.chsaa.org) under Member School Info & Tools and then Legislative Council. The following are brief descriptions of the agenda items:

Constitutional Proposals (requires 2/3 majority vote to pass)

C-1 – Equity Code – The Board of Directors has forwarded a change in the Association’s equity code that aligns the by-law’s language with current state and federal laws. There is no change in the implementation of this by-law.

Administrative Proposals – (Requires majority vote to pass, unless otherwise noted)

ADM 1 - Classification of Schools – This proposal outlines a process where schools that have entry requirements or the ability to screen, interview, select, or are not required by state law to accept students and that have success at the state level will accumulate points based on whether the school won a state championship, was second place, was part of the final four or was part of the final eight in a sport. If that accumulation of points (by sport) is 32 or more points over a four-year period, that school would be mandated to play up a classification in that sport.

ADM-2 – Eighth Grade Contact Date – Under this proposal from the Board of Directors, a coach may have contact with eighth graders from that coach’s school’s feeder schools (as established by the school district) or those students who have pre-registered with that high school for informational meetings at any time, but may conduct practices with currently enrolled underclassmen and the incoming eighth graders after May 1. The CHSAA Sunday Contact Rule will apply.

ADM-3 – Eighth Grade Contact Date – The East Metro and Colorado 7 Leagues have proposed a by-law that would allow high school coaches to have contact with those eighth grade students from that coach’s school’s feeder schools (as established by the school district) at any time prior to May 1, but may not have any currently registered high school students participating in those meetings or practices.

ADM-4 – Winter Vacation Practice/Contact Prohibition – This Denver Prep League proposal would allow a school to seek a waiver of the Winter Practice/Contact Prohibition Rule in limited cases where a team might be invited to an elite tournament that takes place during the CHSAA Prohibition period. The team would be required to honor those prohibition days in the week leading up to or immediately following the dead period.

ADM-5 – Sunday Contact – The Frontier League proposal would allow for high school coaches to have contact with their players on Sundays outside the formal high school sports season during the school year.

Sports/Activities Proposals

S-1 – Fall Sports Season of Sport – A previous adjustment to the starting dates for all fall sports has created a conflict for length of season and potentially for the ending dates in a season, leading to facility issues. This Board of Directors proposal eliminates those conflicts.

S – 2 – Softball Maximum Contests – The Continental League is proposing an increase in games for softball from 19 to 23 for Classes 4A and 5A only.

S – 3 – Tennis Matches Individual – The Southwestern League has clarified the definition of a tennis tournament allowing dual team tournament meets similar to wrestling. This is designed to allow for more flexibility in tennis schedules and tournaments.

S – 5 – Wrestling Matches Individual – The Northern, Tri-Valley, Southwestern and Santa Fe leagues have proposed a new wrestling point schedule. It clearly defines point values for all meets and encourages more dual meet competition.

Administrative Committees

Tournament and Playoff Finance – No major changes have been proposed.

Sportsmanship – The committee has recommended a continuation of the regional sportsmanship summits and is encouraging additional summits.

Equity – No major changes have been proposed.

Budget/Property Administration (Final Reading) – The committee has proposed a modest two-year increase in dues and fees. The Association will be refunding $102,423 to member schools in May

Activities Committees

        Speech – Three changes have been proposed, including the adoption of National forensics League use of on-line Interpretation Sources. Additionally, the adoption of electronic registration for the regional/state tournament has been proposed and the state festival/tournament has adopted two rule changes in duet acting and solo acting to contrasting dialogues.

        Music – No major changes have been proposed.

Sports Committees

Wrestling – The committee made its recommendations for regions in 4A and 5A. Track Wrestling was approved as the computer system to be used for all regionals and state meets. A timeline for schools participation in Track Wrestling has been established.

Track & Field – No major changes have been proposed.

Swimming – The major change proposed is the new state qualifying times to establish 4-5 heats in each event.

Spirit – The committee has recommended changes in the penalties for errors in four areas, including completing a performance out of bounds.

Skiing – No major changes have been proposed.

Lacrosse –No major changes have been proposed.

Ice Hockey – The committee is proposing adding a fourth official on the ice during the playoffs and has established the playoff dates for 2014.

Basketball – The committee has forwarded its proposals: Rotating the regional participants in 1A; Adjusted the qualifiers in 2A; Adjusted the qualifying procedures for Valor Christian and Ponderosa in 4A; recommending that a mandatory post-season survey be conducted of all athletic administrators, boys’ and girls’ basketball coaches be conducted.

The South Central League is proposing an amendment to the 4A portion of the basketball committee report that would reduce qualifiers from all districts and leave a pool of nine at-large qualifiers to be selected by the seeding committee. Three independents – Mullen, Ponderosa, Valor Christian – would be included in this pool and have no established qualifying procedure.

The Confluence League is proposing an amendment to the 3A portion of the report to allow for one automatic qualifier from its league in both boys and girls. The qualifier would come from the Tri-Peaks seven qualifiers.