Conference realignments usually have all the excitement of the tax code and all the controversy of an infomercial for lint.
Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the South Inter-Conference Association is different. When an organization stretches from the Indiana border to Joliet, from impoverished Ford Heights to affluent Frankfort, from virtually all-black Hillcrest to almost all-white Lincoln-Way Central and from Joliet, enrollment 4,993, to 1,066-student Rich South, it’s probably too much to expect a reshuffling would leave everyone even mildly satisfied.
The new alignment, which takes effect next school year, has left three school districts, which include eight of the SICA’s 33 schools, steaming. Representatives of two of those districts have called the realignment racially insensitive and the result of a flawed process, and they have called for state intervention.
Supporters of the realignment describe the decision-making process as thorough and fair.
That process began in late 2003 in response to several factors, including sometimes lengthy travel times to games and reductions in sports offerings at some schools. Football, which has different divisions based on enrollment, was not part of the realignment.
A committee of athletic directors proposed a new alignment that cut the number of SICA conferences from five to three. According to Shepard athletic director Mike Ryan, SICA’s athletic directors approved the proposal 30-3, a principal’s board of control voted 6-2 with one abstention and the conference’s superintendents approved it 16-3, the last vote coming in December.
The dissenting superintendents were J. Kamala Buckner from District 205, which includes Thornridge, Thornton and Thornwood; Robert Wilhite from District 215, which includes Thornton Fractional North and Thornton Fractional South; and Howard Hunigan from District 227, which includes Rich Central, Rich East and Rich South. Those schools, along with Bloom, Crete-Monee and Kankakee, have been placed in the new Southeast Conference.
Buckner and Wilhite have charged the new plan promotes an athletic racial segregation of sorts, even if that was not the intent. Of the 11 Southeast schools, all but T.F. South have predominantly minority enrollments.
In both the North Central and Southwest conferences, all the members but one have predominantly white enrollments.
“We need to spend more time looking at the issue of cultural diversity,” Buckner said. “We should have more cross-cultural exposure across SICA.”
Wilhite called the realignment the result of a flawed process that lacked sufficient early input from superintendents. He said basing it on geography and the scope of schools’ sports offerings was a mistake because of resulting racial imbalance and the grouping of schools with greatly different enrollments in the same conferences.
Wilhite said SICA should have relied more heavily on enrollment and diversity as criteria.
Ryan, who is SICA president, defended the process and the result. He said proposals based on enrollment lacked sufficient support among athletic directors, who regarded geography and scope of schools’ offerings as the most important realignment factors. He said the size of a school’s enrollment doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of its teams.
“At every turn the athletic directors and principals and superintendents collectively have said this is the best model for SICA,” Ryan said. “You’ll never get 33 people to agree on one model, but I stand firm in saying we came up with the best possible plan that suits us all.”
Wilhite and Buckner have not accepted the result, calling for SICA to maintain its current alignment pending further study. Wilhite asked the SICA superintendents to set up a board of appeals regarding the realignment, but they rejected his request 16-3 on Jan. 25.
He and Buckner also have called on Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to investigate whether students’ civil rights may have been violated. Madigan spokeswoman Melissa Merz said the attorney general’s office has requested information from SICA but declined to comment further.
Buckner said District 205 also is preparing a petition to the Illinois State Board of Education, asking it to review whether the realignment violates rules covering equity in activities.
Ryan, meanwhile, says SICA is “moving forward.” Fall and winter schedules reflecting the new alignment are already complete.
It’s sad that the realignment fallout has come to this. You have one side that feels devalued, spurned by richer, whiter schools.
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The other side believes it has done what makes the most sense for the most kids and that not only did the majority rule, but by large margins.
The two sides disagree on how much attention diversity received in the realignment process. Clearly, though, it wasn’t enough, and you suspect supporters of the successful proposal didn’t expect the firestorm it created.
So now what? It’s getting late to tear up schedules, particularly because that would affect schools that have arranged non-conference games with SICA members.
It’s best to let the new system play out and for SICA to promise a complete study of it as well as a thorough and public review in two years, with changes if called for. SICA athletic directors also should strongly implement a request from its superintendents to promote diversity by having mainly white schools play mainly minority ones in crossover games.
The new racial imbalance is unfortunate, but the current one isn’t great either. In the SICA East, four of six schools are predominantly minority; in the SICA South, it’s five of six.
If the appeals to Madigan or the ISBE succeed, that might hasten the demise of the 32-year-old SICA, with schools breaking away to form separate leagues, cementing the kind of racially unbalanced leagues Buckner and Wilhite dread.
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