Announcements

Illinois High School Association (IHSA) member schools approved all eight amendment proposals on the ballot in the annual referendum that ended December 30, 2016. The online ballots were tabulated and certified in the IHSA Office on Wednesday, Jan. 4. All the by-law changes take effect on July 1, 2017.

Here is a summary of the proposals and the vote totals. (The numbers in parentheses indicate the total of yes, no, and no opinion votes. For an amendment to pass, yes votes must outnumber no votes.)

• Proposal 1 (passed 559-9-20): Sets up a procedure for removing a member of the Board of Directors for cause, requiring a two-thirds majority vote of the remaining members of the Board.
• Proposal 4 (passed 492-76-18): Requires a new high school principal to attend a workshop or view an online presentation developed by the IHSA for new school administrators.
• Proposal 8 (passed 393-178-16): Allows open gyms at off-site facilities used during particular athletic seasons. Currently the By-Law restricts open gyms to on-site facilities.
• Proposals 12 & 13 (paired and passed 356-168-64): Moves the start of boys and girls golf practice two days earlier (from Wednesday of Week 6 to Monday of Week 6). Moves the date of the first contest four days earlier (from Monday of Week 7 to Thursday of Week 6).
• Proposals 14 & 15 (paired and passed 245-217-127): Changes the season limitation in girls and boys soccer to 25 contests exclusive of the IHSA state series. The current limitation is a combination of contests plus tournaments.
• Proposal 16 (passed 518-67-4): Allows a school to share video evidence that an ejected player has been misidentified with the Executive Director, who may then overturn the one-game suspension.

 A total of 589 of 811 member schools (72.6%) participated in the amendment balloting, a slight decrease from last year's 73.6%.

Following is a summary of member school participation in the amendment process since 1996-97.