Louisiana High School Athletic Association will convene its summer meetings beginning today, handling usual business such as championship event sites, as well as a rather vague item listed on Thursday’s agenda which could lead to bigger changes.

The agenda item reads “Make special rules to effect the spirit of fair play and good sportsmanship.”

The following items on the agenda are defining select/ non-select (public schools) and postseason bracket changes to classifications and divisions.

Redefining what a select school is likely means placing schools with open-enrollment policies on the select side of the playoffs, which would mean powers such as Warren Easton, Edna Karr and Peabody could be designated as select schools after having been grouped with public schools since the split occurred in January 2013. It could also mean that magnet schools could be shifted from non-select to select.

Any idea shifting too many schools to the non-select divisions may draw the ire of high school principals, who must ratify any changes suggested by the Executive Committee.

When the split was first approved, it was clearly done with a few schools that were dominating the state’s sports scene at the time, in mind.

Since then, numerous issues have plagued the state. There are too many classes for non-select schools and too many divisions for select schools. It’s nearly impossible for public schools to not qualify for the playoffs in some sports — literally no wins are required in some instances.

Solutions have been offered. We’ve had a 32-team “superclass” made of the schools that volunteered to play at the highest level, joined by schools with the largest enrollments. We’ve had pushes for reunification. Success factors that would allow schools to move up in individual sports have been considered. Someone threw out multiplying enrollment of private/select schools by 1.5 for classification purposes. Another idea was a split along rural/metropolitan lines.

All of the ideas have failed. Public school principals have the voting power to get what they want. They got away from the private school powers with the first vote to split and nothing has changed their minds since.

I’m not sure why redefining what a select school is would appeal to them now. I can’t buy the argument that this is the first step in a roundabout plan to bring everyone together again. The big push for that came with Executive Director Eddie Bonine’s arrival and fell short. I don’t think there’s much interest in ever bringing everyone together again. It’s been nearly a decade with the split now and public principals have shown little interest in changing the status quo.

That’s a shame, because the situation isn’t good for anyone, particularly the participants. Lopsided playoff games with teams crisscrossing the state don’t make sense. Twelve state champions in Louisiana doesn’t make sense. Public schools fielding teams with multiple transfers crying foul over private schools having an advantage doesn’t make sense.

Having private schools play state championship games on home fields/ courts surely doesn’t make sense. All championship experiences should be the same for the kids, regardless of which type of school they attend.

Maybe small changes will be done to make the playoffs less ridiculous, but that is as far as I can see principals going at this time. I’d love to be wrong and see everyone back together again.

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Warren Arceneaux covers high school athletics. Email him at Warren.arceneaux@americanpress.com