A ballot has been sent to the association’s 390 schools and school principals, who are the voting members of the association, have until next Tuesday to return ballots.
A three-fourths majority is needed for the measure to pass and to change the NCHSAA constitution.
The NCHSAA constitution says that public schools and non-boarding parochial schools such as Cardinal Gibbons, Charlotte Catholic and Kernersville McGuinness may be members. Charlotte Christ the King was expected to enter the NCHSAA in 2013.
The vote is at the request of Salisbury, West Rowan, East Rowan, South Rowan, North Rowan and China Grove Carson. The NCHSAA constitution requires a membership vote if six or more schools request an item be placed on a ballot.
“To me it is a question of boundaries,” said Joe Pinyin, the Salisbury High athletic director. “Our students come from a specific area. Theirs do not. Their players can come from anywhere.
“It is not a level playing field.”
Davis Whitfield, the NCHSAA commissioner, said Gibbons, McGuinness and Catholic had been exemplary members of the association.
“I think the eligibility rules that we have in place have been effective,” he said.
The non-boarding parochial members of the NCHSAA have additional eligibility requirements. Students who transfer to the schools are ineligible for athletics for one year.
Gibbons, McGuinness and Catholic have been very successful in winning state championships and Gibbons currently leads the Chase’s Wells Fargo Cup all-sports competition.
Gibbons has won 34 NCHSAA state championships since 2005.
State associations throughout the country are confronted with the fairness of private schools playing in associations made up primarily of public schools.
Since 2009, eight state associations have adopted a multiplier for its private school members. The private schools multiply their enrollments by a designated number to determine their classifications. The effect is to put private schools in the larger classification, usually playing larger schools.
Bobby Cox, the executive director of the Indiana High School Athletic Association, told High School Today magazine that private schools make up 14 percent of the membership and won 40 percent of state titles.
In Ohio, private schools make up 16 percent of the membership, but won 70 percent of the titles. Georgia recently expanded from five divisions to six after non-public schools won 26 of 28 state titles, excluding football, wrestling and boys track) since 2008.
Also on the ballot is creating a separate NCHSAA playoff bracket for charter schools, which are public schools but are not governed by local boards of education.
Under the proposed change, charter schools would compete in NCHSAA conferences as they do now, but if a charter school qualified for the playoffs in any sport it would be placed in a charter-school bracket to compete against other charter school members.
