Opponents of the new Florida Metro/Suburban high school football classifications failed to prevent the the new alignment from going into effect this fall. The Florida High School Athletic Association met Monday and heard arguments from opponents of the new set-up that was approved by the FHSAA in February.
Related: Metro/Suburban realignment approved by FHSAA
Those against the Metro/Suburban classifications were hoping to “pause” the new alignment for a year. However, when the votes were counted on Monday, the motion to “pause” failed with only five of 16 members voting for a delay.
Related: 2022-2023 Districts and Regions set
This means Metro/Suburban will go forward for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. #flhsfb https://t.co/ZfyQvRAo0S
— FloridaHSFootball.com (@FlaHSFootball) April 25, 2022
Josh Wilson of FloridaHSFootball.com attended the FHSAA session. Below is an except of Josh’s story:
Representatives from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties making up the tri-county area of South Florida that has been the vocal against the policy change to the Metro-Suburban classifications in football were in attendance and spoke vehemently against the entire policy.
A delegation of coaches and athletic directors representing Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties all showed up asking the Board of Directors to pause, review and reconsider the decision of the Metro/Suburban classification.
Reginald Fox, Administrative Director of School Operations for the Greater Miami Athletic Conference (GMAC) which is under Miami-Dade County Public Schools spoke that the concept was flawed in nature as the concept was born out of statistics. He says they are flaws that created the foundation for the concept citing that 89% of state championships have come from the eight metropolitan counties.
Fox further elaborated in his view that the misuse of statistics leads to a flawed concept and is setting a precedent for dividing the state. He is saying that a divided house cannot stand when asking for a pause and a review.
LaToya Williams, Executive Secretary for the GMAC; Daryle Heidelburg, head coach at Miami Norland and a representative of Section 4 on the Football Advisory Committee; Tommy Caporale head coach at Miami Dr. Krop; and Shawn Carney, Athletic Director at Miami Killian all spoke similar sentiments that Fox had during the public comments expressing for a pause, review, and reconsideration of Metro-Suburban.
Valerie Miyares, District Athletics Manager for Palm Beach County Schools is said there is no support for the Metro-Suburban policy from her 24 high schools in her school district as well as the district superintendent who she was speaking on behalf of as well.
Miyares cited that diversity is mostly concentrated in metropolitan areas saying that most Title I schools are in metropolitan areas while saying that there are Title IX issues as football now has two pathways to a state championship which no girls’ sports have that advantage.
Shelton Crews of the Florida Athletic Coaches Association spoke regarding that classification was something that needed to have happened with discussion in September and any approvals by the Board of Directors in November and not still being discussed now on the first day of spring football.
Crews further went on saying that regarding that if the issues in Policy 12 are not fixed regarding how students are counted it won’t matter what model for classifications is used while speaking in regards to transfers being an issue that is directly tied back to the concerns some have had around school choice.
Crews then reminded the board that he asked for a classification committee three years ago and is still standing by that to look at the things regarding classification for the future.
Shawn Cerra, Director of Athletics and Student Activities for the Broward County School District, representing the Broward County Athletic Association (BCAA), cited support for a pause and have things revisited as he had 46 signatures in hand supporting what he was asking for.
The BCAA represents all public schools in Broward County as well Coral Spring Charter School, Pembroke Pines Charter School, Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas, and Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons.
Arza went on to discuss why he brought this back to the board after the public comments to say that while he still supported the Metro-Suburban concept, he cited Heidelburg’s comments regarding that he thought he was voting on a concept, not an action item through the Football Advisory Committee as a concern. Arza further elaborated saying that most of South Florida had not been heard and had based his assumption for voting on the matter that his area had supported given the Football Advisory’s Committee 9-0 vote back on January 5, thus asking for a one-year pause on implementing.
With that Arza put a motion on the floor for the one-year pause which opened up discussion among the board ranging from those still not in support of the Metro-Suburban policy to those reminding the rest of the board that they said they would support the FHSAA Staff in how the policy was officially shaped and crafted into policy while other cited schedules, homecomings, and venues had already been set for the upcoming season.
Richard Finlayson of Aucilla Christian spoke and reminded the Board of Directors about good governance and reminded the board that they all supported the staff to craft the Metro-Suburban policy. He also stated that going backward would be worse for the association going forward and that it would not be good for the health of the association if they reversed the decision made in February.
From FloridaHSFootball.com
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