Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

January 2006 Board Meeting Summary

Board Approves Strategic Planning Action Team State Tournament Structure Changes

The Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA) Board of Directors responded positively Friday (January 20) in its regular quarterly meeting to recommendations from its State Series Structure Action Team that will have significant impact for the members of the IESA.

Beginning next school term (2006-07), IESA will conduct boys baseball in a three-class structure with a four-class structure in girls basketball, boys basketball and girls volleyball. No changes to classification at this time are being made to girls softball, cross-country, boys wrestling, or track and field.

"This action by our Board is a defining moment in the history of IESA," said Executive Director Steve Endsley. "The members of the action teams took their roles very seriously. They did their research, developed many concepts and finally reached conclusion on the unanimous recommendations they presented to our Board."

Strategic Planning for the IESA was launched the weekend of January 21-22, 2005, when more than 30 volunteers from across the state met as the Planning Team and created 10 belief statements, 12 strategies and a revised Mission Statement. One of the strategies was that "IESA will review state series structure and state series administration." Another of the strategies was that "IESA will provide the appropriate financial resources to meet the mission of IESA."A third was that "IESA will review the IESA Constitution."

The State Series Structure Action Team met three times before sending its recommendations to the Board. The Financial Resources Action Team met twice before sending its recommendations to the Board. The Constitution Action Team has met three times and the Board heard a report of progress being made by that action team Friday. Minutes of all the action team meetings are published in the Strategic Planning section of the IESA Web Site at www.iesa.org.

The change to a four-class structure in boys and girls basketball and girls volleyball allows IESA to re-organize the state final playing schedules in the 7th Grade State Series and the 8th Grade State series from two 16-team tournaments that take four days to complete for basketball (three for volleyball), to four state finals that will be played over only two days at four different sites. In basketball, there will be four state finals, Class 1A, Class 2A, Class 3A and Class 4A, on the 7th grade weekend and four more state finals on the 8th grade weekend. The eight teams in each state final will compete in quarterfinal round games beginning Saturday morning and the four survivors will battle in semifinal games Saturday evening. The third place and championship games will be played the following Thursday evening. In girls volleyball, the structure is the same but the state final playing days will be Saturday and the following Tuesday.

Teams will be assigned to their class based on the number of schools entering teams in the respective 7th and 8th grade series. The total number of schools entered by the entry deadline date will be divided by four with 25 percent of the schools entered assigned by their enrollment into one of the four classes.

In baseball, a three-class system will be implemented. Schools will be divided by their enrollments with one third of the schools entered assigned into Class 1A, Class 2A and Class 3A respectively. The three state finals will be played on Friday and Saturday of each weekend at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria.

Because there are nearly 100 more schools that enter the state series in boys baseball than in girls softball, the action team, after looking at the entry numbers, declined to recommend expansion to three classes in softball. However, the action team's recommendation to change the playing days in the girls softball regionals was approved. Beginning next fall, all regional quarterfinal games will be played on Wednesday of Week 10 in the Standardized Calendar and the semifinals and championship game will be played on Saturday. If a regional has only four teams, all its games will be played on Saturday of Week 10. This will save the school from traveling an extra day to play the championship game---a change that was also supported by the softball advisory committee.

In all of the affected sports, there will be 16 regionals and eight sectionals in each class with eight teams advancing to the state final tournament. The State Series Structure Action Team will review the remaining sports and any recommendations they might develop will also be put before the Board. Again, no changes to softball, cross-country, wrestling or track and field are being planned for 2006-07.

"What a difference playing our state finals in two days compared to four days is going to make to our member schools and their fans," Endsley said. "Our State Series Action team had as their main priority to reduce the number of nights a team had to travel that continues to win at our state finals. It never was about giving out more trophies or giving more kids a chance to win, nor was it in response to the recent action taken by the Illinois High School Association. It was always about reducing the travel and the monetary expense to our member schools. In a few isolated instances, teams may travel a bit more for regional play but I hope our membership looks at the overall benefits for the majority of the membership. The third baseball class does bring eight additional teams to the finals and the Action Team looked specifically at the enrollments of the classes in baseball. A school with a 7-8 enrollment of 135 was playing a school with an enrollment of 1100. With the third class, that same school will now play in class 2A where the approximate enrollment of the class will be 96-181."

"The total number of teams that have advanced to the state finals in basketball and volleyball remains the same as in previous years. But the schools and their fans will only travel two days instead of four if they play for a trophy. Everyone will have ample time to make plans for their team's appearance in the tournament."

"And the new format for the state series may help us recruit new membership and participation in the state series. School administrations now know that if their school participates and achieve the success of playing in the state tournament, they will only have the expenses of two days compared to four."

"When you take a close look at what is going to happen, you'll also see that a No. 1 seed will only play one less game in the state series than in the past," Endsley added. "To be state champion, a No. 1 seed in the regional is going to have to win six games instead of seven."

"We know and understand that at the state finals, it's going to be an adjustment to play two games on the first day. But, for the four teams that advance to the semifinals, they know they will be coming back to play for a trophy."

If the new class system would have been in place for the 2005-06 school year, the breakdown would have been as follows:

Changes in the annual membership dues and entry fees into the athletic state series also were approved by the IESA Board. Beginning next school term (2006-07), the dues paid by each member school will increase from $50 to $75 per year, and the entry fee for each athletic state series will increase to $45. The Board also approved that thee be an annual review of membership dues and entry fees.

"Our Association must use membership dues and entry fees to operate," Endsley observed. "Our dues were last increased in 1989. In 1995, we last raised the athletic entry fees from $25 to $30. Much of the increase in fees will be used to offset our anticipated costs in administering the expansion of the state series and to help offset what we anticipate will be a decline in state final tournament revenue because of the reduction in the days of the playing schedule. Also, it will help us meet the demands of our expanding computer technology."

The IESA Board also approved the Financial Resources Action team recommendation that the contract with Wilson Sporting Goods be renegotiated addressing the issue of costs associated with the shipping of the official balls used in the state series to the host schools, the insufficient supply of official balls provided to the host schools, and the impact of expansion in the state series.

The Board took the following action regarding these advisory committee recommendations:

Baseball:

Cross-Country

Speech

Sportsmanship

Softball

All Sports

The Board took the following action regarding other business of the Association:

Division Reports

At each meeting of the Board of Directors, time is devoted for each board member to report on communication with and requests from the member schools in the member's division. In addition, Board members also may make observations regarding the operation of the Association. Following is a report of those from the January 20 meeting: