The Illinois High School Association's Legislative Commission voted Wednesday (Nov. 28) to refer 11 proposals to amend the IHSA Constitution and By-laws to a vote of the general membership. The Commission voted after hearing feedback from member school personnel at 28 town meetings held around the state during the month of November.
The ballot containing the proposals will be available to each member school's official representative in the IHSA's online Schools Center, beginning Monday, December 3. The deadline to submit the ballot is midnight, Monday, December 17. The ballots will be tabulated and the results posted on Tuesday, December 18. Schools will be able to vote "no opinion" on any of the proposals. A simple majority of yes or no votes cast will determine whether each proposal passes.
Here is a summary of the proposals on the ballot:
- Proposal 1: Requires that the IHSA Executive Director make all eligibility decisions involving students transferring into any school district with ten or more high schools from a school outside the district's jurisdiction.
- Proposal 6: Allows the IHSA Executive Director to grant limited eligibility, which would not include varsity or state series competition, to international students who are not part of a qualified foreign exchange program.
- Proposal 9: Allows the IHSA Executive Director to grant limited eligibility, which would not include varsity or state series competition, to a student who transfers before the start of his or her sophomore year, and who would otherwise be ineligible.
- Proposal 10: Allows the IHSA Executive Director to grant permission for a diver to practice with an independent team during the sport season if his or her school lacks diving facilities.
- Proposal 11: Allows the IHSA Executive Director to approve an athlete's participation in an event conducted by the junior affiliate of a sport’s National Governing Body.
- Proposal 13: Allows grade school and junior high school students to participate with high school students in interscholastic agricultural events.
- Proposal 15: Moves the start of practice to Monday of Week 6 on the IHSA Standardized Calendar for the following sports: Boys & Girls Cross Country, Girls Tennis, Boys Soccer, Girls Volleyball, and Girls Swimming & Diving. (Note: This proposal was originally five separate Proposals, numbered 15 through 19.)
- Proposal 20: Allows non-varsity football games to be played on Thursday of Week 8 on the IHSA Standardized Calendar.
- Proposal 22: Allows schools that are members of the Illinois 8-Man Football Association to participate in a post-season playoff conducted by the I8FA.
- Proposal 23: Directs the IHSA to implement a football scheduling system for regular-season varsity games that would involve the following: (a) a 9-week regular season, (b) playoff classes determined in advance of the season; (c) schools from each class placed into 8 geographic groups by the IHSA Office to play a round-robin schedule; (d) the remaining games on the regular season schedule to be arranged by the individual schools at their discretion; (e) the top 4 teams in each of the 8 groups qualify for the playoffs, based on games played within each group. (NOTE: This proposal would take effect starting with the 2021 football season.)
- Proposal 25: Sets separate team and individual season limitations for Girls Wrestling.
The text of these proposals, as amended, is available in a PDF document.
The remaining proposals were rejected by the Legislative Commission. A total of 31 of the 35 commissioners attended the meeting, which was held at the IHSA Office in Bloomington. The meeting was rescheduled from Monday because of poor road conditions across a large part of the state.