Nearly all OHSAA referendum items OK’d

Submitted information

COLUMBUS — Ohio High School Athletic Association member schools passed 12 of 13 proposed revisions to the OHSAA Constitution and Bylaws, Executive Director Doug Ute announced Tuesday. The OHSAA’s annual referendum voting period ended at 4 p.m. Monday. Each member school has one vote on each item, which is cast by the high school principal. Once again, nearly every school completed its voting obligation as required by Constitution Article 8-1-9, with 814 of the OHSAA’s 818 member high schools casting their ballot.

Issue 1B, which would have permitted a student enrolled at a public school that does not sponsor a team sport to potentially play that sport at a public school located in a bordering public school district, failed for a second consecutive year by a margin of 427 to 374 (13 abstained). The margin was significantly greater than the 2022 vote which failed by 13 votes (406 to 393), the closest vote in documented OHSAA history.

“Last year, the conversation was dominated by the NIL proposal, which didn’t pass and had no momentum or requests to return to the referendum ballot this year,” OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute said. “With that topic on hold, Issue 1B was the primary focus this year and our office worked diligently to listen to our schools after last year’s close vote and tweak the proposed language to add additional safeguards and ease some concerns. We are pleased with the dialogue and discussions which took place during this voting period.”

All 13 issues were placed on the ballot per the approval of the OHSAA Board of Directors. More information about this year’s referendum issues, regional update meetings and complete results of the voting are available at https://www.ohsaa.org/School-Resources/referendum-voting.

The approved Bylaw and Constitution changes will go into effect August 1, unless noted otherwise. A simple majority of votes cast by member school principals is required for a proposed amendment to be adopted. Each member school has one vote.