State by State public vs. private update for 2021

SC multiplier, but only move up 1 class

We get to play with players in our fairly narrow attendance zone (which changes every few years).
Privates get to play with anyone who can drive to the school--so their attendance zone can be pretty broad. In NC, it's a 25 mile radius---but some find ways around that. I'm not sure how there's going to be a level playing field between a narrow attendance zone and a 25 mile radius. Using the formula described above in NC didn't really work--it just put the privates in with affluent high schools for the most part. It certainly didn't solve the problem.

Admittedly, there are also those areas with "open enrollment" throughout the district. Again, hard to have a level playing field when one school brings in players from an entire county and the others have a small area inside the county to draw from.

I've always believed they should play in their own league or division. Traditional public schools play together, the others play together.

Public school “recruiting” has been an issue in our state for a while. Several of our state’s dominant public school programs (we’re talking schools who play for state about every year) benefit from open enrollment policies that siphon off talent from less affluent county systems nearby who don’t have those advantages.

“Recruiting” is illegal for public schools, but all kinds of shady things happen under the table, like coaches or boosters giving athletes’ families places to live rent-free if they’ll move into their zone. A few years ago a former player-turned-booster loaded some stud athletes from a nearby school up and drove them to a local powerhouse to meet with staff during school hours—the coach there refused to meet with them because it was such an obvious violation.

Our state is full of relatively affluent, smaller “city” school systems that draw in talent from nearby county schools with narrow enrollment zones. The state funding formula is pretty much designed to make it that way: if a county wants to build a new building or invest in their system, they have to also give an equal amount of money to the cities who already control most of the tax base and don’t have to do the same.

What you are describing as "recruiting" is going on all over.  You've got schools in areas of high population outside of major cities that are loaded with transfers....not just the normal people move into those areas thing....but a surprising number of D1 players who just happened to move there.  

This is not the case. Privates may play public schools. Private schools are split into their own regions and their own classification. The old multiplier was 1.8 but is no longer needed due to a complete public private split.

Open zoned/enrollment schools still recruit however. A few get caught from time to time. 

Texas UIL is public schools. They did let two private in a long time ago It still pisses me off they did that.
But those two haven't done much of anything.

The private schools have their own leagues.

In Iowa, all schools are treated the same. There was some discussion about using some sort of multiplier for private schools but then covid hit and no one has said anything about it.

Not that I'm aware of. The discussion always gets brought up if private schools have a good year. This year however, I believe all the schools playing in the championship games were public schools. A few years ago over half the champions were private schools and people were calling for some sort of change.

Arkansas has changed to a success point system for privates. Shockingly they have all been so successful they will be moving up in class. So they will be reevaluated every 2 years

we are in south jersey...non public has there own playoff groupings...grouped by school size

Minnesota MSHSL is all public and private schools. No multiplier. Several private and public schools do opt up in football and hockey.
In football we have 6 classes plus 9-man.
This year one private school (smallest 11 man class) won a title. The rest were all public schools.

And the state association selected a former private school principal as their new president.  So doubtful to see any multiplier for the private schools.  

I'm in Rhode Island. Obviously we are a small state so we only have 6 Private High Schools with football programs, but we have the same problems as all of you, just on a smaller scale. The RI Interscholastic League classifies schools by a formula. 85% of the formula is your league record from the past 3 seasons, 15% male enrollment. We have 4 Divisions (Classifications) in RI. However, the current system has 5 playoffs. As of right now, two of these teams are in Division 1 (our top division). two are in Division 2. The other two are not really football schools so they co-op with public schools close to them. Both these teams are in our lowst classification, Division 4. There are 2 private schools here, where most years they are the two best teams in the state. Obviously, when this happens over and over again, the public schools competing with these teams are going to complain. So for the last few years this is how the playoffs work. The top four teams in Div. 1 compete for the "State Championship". The two losers from those semi final games get redistributed back into the playoff pool with the next 4 best teams from Div. 1, making the Div. 1 playoff a 6 team bracket now, with the 2 semi final losers getting 1st round byes. So we have 5 "state champions". The highest title is simply called "State Champions". Then we have D1, D2, D3, D4 State Champions.

This would be my solution in our state. There are 4 of 6 private schools that have excellent programs. Those 4 schools should have their own conference and their playoff should be separate from the public schools. I also think our states classification formula needs to be tweaked. Male enrollment counting just 15% toward the formula is just ridiculous if you ask me. I understand they want to make the classifications as even as possible, but sometimes we have schools with a male enrollment of 350 or lower in our highest classification because they had a couple good seasons in D2. Well all the players that got these small schools bumped up are gone leaving some of the small schools trying to compete with schools with 700, 800 or more male students for a couple years until they can get bumped back down.

Actually SC does not have a multiplier.....There was a push for it 2 cycles ago, but then realignment ended up moving the schools up without it, so it fell by the wayside. Now they have moved all the privates / charters  back down to Classes AA and A. I would venture to say that next year that not a single public school wins a state title in ANY sport in Class A.