Announcements

All 13 proposals on the ballot in the annual Illinois High School Association (IHSA) member school referendum were approved in voting by the membership last month. The online ballots were tabulated and certified in the IHSA Office Thursday (Jan. 6). All the by-law changes take effect on July 1, 2011.

Here is a summary of the successful proposals and the vote totals:

• Proposal 1 (passed 312-103) requires a school renewing a coop to file the same materials with its application as a new coop, and redefines the requirements of a coop in terms of the 4-class system.
• Proposal 7 (passed 326-90) moves the deadline for an athlete to cease non-school practice and competition in a particular sport from 5 days to 7 days after the school team’s first practice or tryout.
• Proposal 8 (passed 336-75) clarifies the Independent Team Participation rule to state that in determining the number of school athletes that are on a non-school squad, only those that have eligibility to play in the next season of that sport shall be counted.
• Proposal 10 (passed 321-89) rewords the Coaching School Participation by-law to prohibit coaches, rather than students, from being involved, during the school term, in any coaching school, camp, or clinic attended by more than 2 student-athletes from his or her school.
• Proposal 12 (passed 361-48) provides that any member school charging less than the full tuition rate authorized by the Illinois School Code shall be considered a non-boundaried school for classification purposes.
• Proposal 14 (passed 369-44) limits the number of contests that may be played by a team in any one tournament to 5, and replaces an identical restriction already in place in the basketball and volleyball by-laws.
• Proposal 17 (passed 375-32) eliminates the boys spring golf season.
• Proposal 19 (passed 373-28) clarifies the rule to allow a school to participate in 14 swimming contests and 14 diving contests.
• Proposal 20 (passed 378-33) eliminates the boys fall tennis season.
• Proposal 21 (passed 379-29) eliminates the girls spring golf season.
• Proposal 23 (passed 285-123) restricts the formation of fall softball teams to only those schools that do not offer girls volleyball.
• Proposal 24 (passed 375-33) eliminates the girls spring tennis season.
• Proposal 27 (passed 368-41) restricts practice by (but not the organization of) Competitive Cheerleading squads to the period from Monday of Week 18 to Saturday of Week 37.

The complete listing of all 27 original proposals can be found by clicking here.

A total of 416 of 786 member schools (52.9%) participated in the amendment vote.

Following is a summary of member school participation in the amendment process since 1996-97.