Lawmaker wants activities association reined in

~ The MSHSAA is an organization that governs student competitions.

A state lawmaker wants the legislature to have some authority over the Missouri State High School Activities Association, which she views as an organization that's out of control.

"I think they are an organization that has got just too big for their britches," said state Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, Mo.

She was one of about a half-dozen legislators who were barred by the MSHSAA from attending a board meeting September at which board members discussed alleged rule violations involving the tiny Naylor School District in Ripley County and its girls basketball and softball teams. The MSHSAA cited student privacy issues.

Cunningham, who chairs the House education committee, said she expects legislation to be introduced this session that would require association bylaws to be reviewed and pass the scrutiny of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. The committee of five senators and five representatives is charged with monitoring and reviewing proposed and existing rules of the various departments and divisions of state government. The goal is to ensure state agencies don't exceed their authority and that the agencies effectively accomplish their missions.

MSHSAA isn't part of state government. But Cunningham said the association has more control over students when it comes to school activities than do school districts or parents.

She has already introduced another bill aimed at regulating MSHSAA, an organization that governs student competitions from sports to marching band. House Bill 30 would bar any public school from being a member of any activities association that prohibits a tuition-paying student from participating in any school activity.

MSHSAA prohibits such students from playing varsity sports in their first year at a high school except in hardship cases. Association officials say the rule is in place to prevent families from "shopping" for a school sports team.

But Cunningham believes the association's rule unfairly prevents nonresident students from participating in school activities even though they are paying tuition that entitles them to attend that school.

Kerwin Urhahn, executive director of MSHSAA, argues that the voluntary association of more than 1,000 public and private junior high and high schools is accountable to its members. If the majority of schools want to revise a rule or change a rule they can do so by a majority vote, he said.

"We want to make sure we do what is best for the kids."

Cunningham cites the Naylor case to support the need for legislative oversight. Wednesday the MSHSAA board of directors ordered Naylor to forfeit all its high school girls basketball and softball games played last year, including its girls basketball district championship. The Naylor girls basketball team also is barred from playing in the post-season district tournament this year.

Urhahn said an investigation by MSHSAA that began in February found sufficient evidence that five students hadn't met the residency requirements to be eligible to play on high school teams at Naylor.

The school district near the Arkansas line has just over 400 students, including fewer than 200 high school students.

Naylor superintendent Stephen Cookson said the association started the investigation after getting a complaint from a disgruntled former coach. Cookson believes the allegations are unfounded.

Cookson and the school district's attorney, Paul Kidwell of Poplar Bluff, Mo., argued that the association should not have carried out an investigation in the first place because no complaint was made by a school district.

At a hearing, Kidwell said, he wasn't allowed to cross-examine the superintendent of the neighboring Neelyville School District when the superintendent was called to testify against the Naylor school system.

"Basically it was a witch hunt," Cookson said.

The association, he said, singled out Naylor while failing to take any action against the Bell City School District, which was found by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to have violated student residency requirements as it related to state aid.

But Urhahn said his organization never received a complaint regarding the Bell City situation. As a result, MSHSAA didn't look into that case.

The association handed out the punishment to Naylor, though a lawsuit filed by the school district is still pending before the Missouri Southern District Court of Appeals in Springfield.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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