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STATE COLLEGE -- House Bill 41 was not discussed at length at the PIAA's summer meeting on Wednesday at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, but the notes regarding PIAA Executive Director Mark Byers' meetings with various advisory committees provided a possible clue into an eventual snag due to the bill's language.
Byers pointed out in his update on House Bill 41 within the committees that the bill defines "boundary" schools as traditional public schools and "non-boundary schools" as private and charter schools.
He also mentioned that accepting tuition-paying or career and technical education students would not change the public school's classification as a "boundary" school under the bill's current form.
"A traditional public school would maintain its definition of a boundary school, even if it accepts students from outside its school district," Byers said.
Which sounds exactly like a school that House Bill 41 is trying to separate from a playoff field its supporters believe will be all home-grown teams.
The PIAA does not play a role in whether traditional public schools allow practices like tuition-paying students from outside their school district to attend. That decision comes from the school itself.
"That's at the discretion of that local school board," Byers said. "That's for them to decide whether they adopt policies that allow students from outside their school district."
If a public school allows this -- and many do -- a student could live in one school district and play for their rival's school district, as long as that student paid tuition.
How is that different from a student in the Huntingdon school district paying to attend school at Bishop Guilfoyle Academy?
It brings me back to the argument that if this bill passes, a public school will simply fill the role and behave in a way many supporters of House Bill 41 now complain about regarding some private schools.
That's because -- as Byers seems to agree -- it's not a public vs. private issue.
"I think I would best describe it as a success issue," Byers said. "There are schools that don't have success, whether they are public schools or private schools or charter schools, and you never hear any complaints, because they don't have success. But when there's sustained success, and the ability to have sustained success year over year, that's what is bringing this to a head."
It's already something that is happening with many districts reporting more kids transferring into different public schools than switching from public to private.
"With over 1,800 transfers taking place annually that our districts are reacting to, those transfers aren't just in a private or charter setting," Byers said. "They are also transferring into public schools. As a whole, transfers impact all of our member schools, not just a defined few."
Of course, many of those transfers are related to families moving, split families or issues far beyond sports, and most of the time, the process in which a public school adds a new student is different than the way a private school does.
"The argument you would get from a public school side is that if students are moving into and residing within their district, they don't have the ability to say yes or no for entry into that school," Byers said. "I think that's a line of demarcation as well. In a private or charter school setting, there's an application process and enrollment process where even if that may be the closest private school available to that student, they can be denied. I think part of what plays into this is the ability to control enrollment and control the students coming into their school."
Hopefully before House Bill 41 passes through the Senate, if it does, a closer look is taken at what exactly the bill's purpose is -- eliminating unfair advantages -- instead of trying to dumb it down as a public vs. private issue that can be not only be claimed as possible religious discrimination but also worked around by public schools once a theoretical separation happens, leaving upset schools and programs in the same boat they are in now.
Michael Boytim can be reached at mboytim@altoonamirror.com or 814-946-7521. Follow him on X @BoytimMichael.