Representatives from at least 137 public schools will meet in State College today to talk about their differences with the PIAA on the public versus private school sports debate; specifically, whether “boundary” schools should be competing with “non-boundary” schools in the state playoffs.
The group will include leaders from Heritage Conference schools Blairsville-Saltsburg, Homer Center, Marion Center, and Penns Manor, and Northern Cambria. At least thirty of the 137 schools which have committed to the meeting are from District 6.
The PIAA will not have anyone at the meeting, which Executive Director Bob Lombardi has called “divisive”. Laurel School District Superintendent Leonard Rich tells PennLive.com that the group wants to “create an exit ticket” from the PIAA, but says the real goal is to reform the current playoff system. He calls the reforms announced last week by the PIAA a “waste of time” because the end result will still be non-boundary schools playing boundary schools in the playoffs.
Rich tells PennLive that Lombardi wasn’t invited to the meeting, but he’d be welcomed if he showed up, which Lombardi says he wouldn’t do.
