IESA Board of Directors Spring Meeting Recap

The IESA Board of Directors approved a revision of the coaching education qualifications; acted on the athletic directors, basketball, cheerleading, and chess committee recommendations; approved a survey to the membership concerning the penalty for coaches being ejected from a contest, and tied up other loose ends at its regularly scheduled meeting on April 8, 2016.

The Board unanimously approved a recommendation to revise the IESA coaching education qualifications. "The IESA has required for a number of years that coaches either be a licensed teacher who is teaching at least two periods a day, an administrator, someone working in school service personnel with the appropriate license, or has taken an IESA approved coaching education course," said IESA Executive Director Steve Endsley. "The revisions bring our requirements more in line with those that have been in place with the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) with a couple of exceptions. The biggest revision is that coaches in the activities of golf, cheerleading, and bowling will now need to meet the IESA coaching education requirements. These coaches were previously exempt from needing to meet the requirements but given that these same coaches must fulfill the concussion tests as required by Senate Bill 7, now is the time to also require these coaches to also meet the IESA coaching education requirements." Here are the highlights/changes to the new IESA coaching education requirements:

An updated flyer explaining all of the IESA coaching education requirements is available on the IESA website. You can access that flyer by clicking here.

The Board took the following action regarding recommendations from the athletic directors, basketball, cheerleading, and chess advisory committees:

Athletic Directors:

Boys/Girls Basketball:

Cheerleading: The Board approved a recommendation to implement a rubric scoresheet for the routine division. Also approved was a recommendation to change to an average score of the judges' scores rather than a cumulative score of all the judges' scores.

Chess: The Board approved changes to the online roster deadline, the List of Participants form, when substitutes are permitted, when coaches must check-in at the state competition, the number of clocks and Staunton design chess sets that each school must bring to the finals, and the seeding process. The Board also approved rule book changes as presented. All of the changes will be highlighted in the Terms and Conditions when schools register for the activity. Please refer to the advisory committee minutes of chess page on the IESA website for an explanation of the changes.

Other Business Items

Ejection Survey: Schools will be receiving a survey regarding their views and opinions on whether additional or stronger penalties should be in effect when a coach is ejected from a contest for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Update on Senate Bill 7: Associate Executive Director Nicole Schaefbauer updated the Board on the implementation of Senate Bill 7. The legislation requires ALL interscholastic athletic coaches to take a concussion training course from an authorized provider at least once every 2 years.

Update on Senate Bill 2264: Mr. Endsley updated the Board on Senate Bill 2264. This bill would mandate that all public schools in the state allow any private school within their district to participate in all sports in which the public school does not make cuts (i.e. allows all who go out for the sport to participate without cutting). The Association is definitely opposed to the bill as we believe that the current co-op procedures which are in place that allows public and private schools to co-op makes a legislative mandate unnecessary. Further, this bill would remove local control in that a public school would not have the right to not allow private schools from joining their teams if it was not in their best interest to do so. If this bill should become law, it has far reaching implications most of which has a negative impact on participation. For additional information, please click on the following link:

http://cqrcengage.com/ilprincipals/app/bill/676257;jsessionid=uBmWxXnmixstJF-9RTEJUqmI.undefined

Wrestling Regional Assessments: The Board approved a change to the wrestling regional financial report. If a wrestling regional runs a deficit, the assessment to each school will now be based on the number of participating teams and not on a per bout basis for each team.

One Team Award: The Board approved a change to the One Team Award which will allow two or more teams from a school who work together on a community service project to be eligible to apply for the award.

Treasurer's Report: The Board received and accepted the treasurer's report for the fiscal period through February 29, 2016.

Financial Reports: The Board accepted the financial reports for the state series in girls basketball, cheerleading, chess, and speech.

Scholar Attitude Award: The Board received the names of the Scholar Attitude Award winners from their respective divisions. The date of the luncheon for the winners is scheduled for May 3, 2016.

Board Meetings: There is one regular meeting remaining in the 2015-16 school year. It is scheduled for June 17, 2016.

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 April 8 meeting:

Division A: Mr. Haupt had a question regarding the password that is to be used to access the required concussion course and test. Schools will use the A.D. password to access this information.

Division E: Ms. Derby was contacted by a school in her division about the possibility of a multiplier being added to the enrollments of private schools similar to the multiplier that the IHSA uses on their private schools. Executive Director's Note: This question has been asked by a few schools since the IHSA adopted their multiplier policy. The IESA Board once again reiterated that there are no plans to adopt a multiplier at our level. The IHSA uses a multiplier of 1.65 on their private schools. We have several schools where a multiplier of 3.00 or even a 4.00 multiplier could be used and those schools would still be Class 1A. The simple fact remains that a multiplier at our level simply is not feasible given the number of extremely small private schools that are members of the Association.

Division K: Mr. Graham was contacted by a member school regarding the scholastic bowl regional assignments. The school was questioning the placement of their school in the assignments. No action was taken.