School closures push changes on OSSAA

The Oklahoma Secondary Schools Athletic Association (OSSAA) expects school closures in the Oklahoma City School District to impact the alignment of activities throughout the state during the 2019-2020 school year.

On July 23, the OSSAA announced its tentative ADM figures for 2019-2020 school year along with a statement providing more detail about their plan for the next two months. More on that process can be found at the end of this article.

ADM stands for average daily membership, which is used in conjunction with ADA (Average Daily Attendance) to help school administrators determine enrollment figures per PowerSchool.com, a website associated with Pearson Education.

Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service company. The Oklahoma Department of Education has previously used Pearson’s assessment service, according the ODE website.

OSSAA Assistant Director Amy Cassell said the closings of Centennial High School and Northeastern High School are unique circumstances. Cassell’s area of expertise at the OSSAA is fast pitch and slow pitch softball.

“All fall activities except for football begin on July 15,” she said. “Practice for football begins on August 12 unless the school and their Week One opponent starts class early. We are waiting for the co-op date of August 15 to pass. [For softball], the only thing that will change is [classifications for Classes] A & B.”

Cassell added that the change in classifications should not impact fast pitch or slow pitch softball for either school district in Marshall County.

“None of the OKC schools play softball so that won’t impact classifications,” she said.

However, an impact could be felt down the line in other activities as classifications are determined by ADM size .Thursday, September 5 is the day the OSSAA has circled on its calendar, Cassell said.

“The schools have an idea of where [the students’] residence says but [that district] allows transfers so we’re waiting a little bit longer,” she said. “They’ll need to count the students once school starts to have a better idea and then submit that information to us.”

According the OSSAA Constitution, schools in Marshall County are considered part of the Southeast (SE) Quadrant. The SE Quadrant also includes schools in the following counties: Atoka, Bryan, Choctaw, Cleveland, Coal, Haskell, Hughes, Johnston, Latimer, Le Flore, McCurtain, McIntosh, Oklahoma, Pittsburg, Pontotoc, Pottawatomie, Pushmataha, Seminole, and Sequoyah.

Meanwhile, neighboring counties such as Carter and Love are part of the Southwest (SW) Quadrant. The other counties in the SW Quadrant are as follows: Beckham, Caddo, Canadian, Carter, Comanche, Cotton, Garvin, Grady, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Jefferson, Kiowa, McClain, Murray, Stephens, Tillman and Washita.

OSSAA statement

The following comes directly from the OSSAA and lines out the organization’s process for this year’s one-time adjustment:

“In an effort to provide the most accurate count for OKCPS high schools, and

subsequently for all member schools to be placed in the appropriate classifications for activities, the OSSAA will make a one-time adjustment to the classification of activities for the 2019 seasons, and a onetime adjustment of classifications that will be used for the purpose of redistricting football, spring baseball and soccer for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

OKCPS will provide their actual 9th grade through 12th grade ADM numbers from each high school to the OSSAA no later than September 5, 2019. The 2019-2020 ADM will be posted to OSSAA.com at 4 p.m. on September 10, 2019. Any discrepancies in ADM numbers must be reported to the OSSAA before September 13, 2019 at 4 p.m. The ADM numbers will be deemed official on September 13, 2019.

The following procedures will be used for the one-time adjustment to the classification process.

The Cheer Regional, State and Game Day competitions will require the classifications to be released no later than September 1, 2019; therefore the numbers from the end of the school year Annual Statistical Report from the State Department of Education and the agency certified ADM numbers from non-public schools will be used to classify Cheer for the 2019-2020 school year.

The adjusted numbers will have no effect on Fall Baseball; therefore, Fall Baseball will use the end of the school year Annual Statistical Report from the State Department of Education and the agency certified ADM numbers from non-public schools to classify for the 2019 fall baseball season.

Cross Country and Volleyball will use the end of year Annual Statistical Report from the State Department of Education, the agency certified ADM numbers from non-public schools, and the adjusted numbers from OKCPS to classify for the 2019 season.

Spring Baseball and Soccer will use the end of year Annual Statistical Report from the State Department of Education, the agency certified ADM numbers from non-public schools and the adjusted numbers from

OKCPS to redistrict Class 6A, 5A, 4A, 3A and 2A spring baseball for the 2020 and 2021 seasons, and the Class 6A, 5A and 4A 2020 and 2021 soccer seasons. The proposed Districts for baseball and soccer will be presented the OSSAA Board of Directors at their regularly scheduled meeting on October 9, 2019.

All other activities (Academic Bowl, Basketball, Golf, Slow-Pitch Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track and Field, Wrestling, Music, One-Act Play, and Speech & Debate) will use the end of year Annual Statistical Report from the State Department of Education, the agency certified ADM numbers from non-public schools, and the adjusted numbers from OKCPS to classify for the 2019-2020 school year.

Football will use the numbers from the First Quarter Statistical Report from the State Department of Education and the agency certified ADM numbers from non-public schools to redistrict football for the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Proposed football districts will be presented to the OSSAA Board of Directors at their regularly scheduled meeting on January 15, 2020.”