A bill sponsored by Rep. Jamie Kiel (R-Russellville) would eliminate playoff games between private and public schools in all sports sanctioned by the Alabama High School Athletic Association.
HB 547, which Kiel introduced April 8, 2025, would prohibit public K-12 schools from competing against private schools in any post-season or playoff game.
Additionally, HB 547 would prohibit public K-12 schools from competing in any athletic event against a school not a member of the athletic association the public school belongs to unless certain requirements are met by the non-member school.
Those requirements include: Mandating physical exams for all students before competing, establishing and enforcing a concussion management protocol, restricting participation to students under age 19 on August 1st of that school year and using officials certified by the National Federation of State High School Association’s rules and procedures.
It’s not hard to find coaches and administrators of public schools who believe they are disadvantaged when competing against private schools. Private schools have enjoyed a disproportionate number of state championships in AHSAA sports, including two championships in the 2024 varsity football season.
If HB547 is enacted into law, it could lead to private schools having to create their own athletic association and no longer competing through the AHSAA.
And if those schools want to play public schools in non-playoff games, they must satisfy the criteria outlined in the bill.
The AHSAA already uses a system that attempts to even the advantage private schools currently hold in athletics as a result of being able to recruit students, not being subject to geographical boundaries that establish enrollment and offering scholarships to indigent students whose families could not otherwise afford the school’s tuition.
The AHSAA utilizes an enrollment index of 1.35 to the actual student count used to classify schools from 1A-7A, meaning private schools are classified based on 135% of their enrollment index, compared to 100% for public schools. Additionally, the AHSAA uses a ‘competitive balance factor’ based on the previous two-year championship data, meaning a private school could be moved up in classification in a team sport in which it won a state title.
For Kiel, this factor is not sufficient to balance the competitive disparity.
“When Russellville (High School) played its last baseball playoff game this month, 40% of the remaining schools in the 1A-5A baseball playoffs were private schools, a level significantly higher than the percentage of private schools in the AHSAA,” Kiel said.
With time running out in the 2025 Legislative Session, Kiel acknowledges HB547 will not become law this year. But he plans to refile the legislation unless the AHSAA enacts a comprehensive plan to address the issues that led to its filing.
“Filing this bill lets the AHSAA know the legislature is serious about these changes,” Kiel said. “I would like the AHSAA to do the changes on its own and create a system fair for all schools, and acknowledge the system is not fair.”
If private schools are required to compete in their own association championship events, there would be issues regarding lengthy travel and potentially not having enough schools to form an independent association.
Kiel said the criteria set for schools to compete in an athletic association in HB547, if complied with, would allow the more than 100 Alabama Independent School Association schools to join private schools to compete during the season and post-season. Not all AISA schools have full athletic programs in all AHSAA sanctioned sports though.
“There is a path for nonpublic schools to have a championship playoff tournament if enough schools comply with the criteria designed to protect player safety for those schools and the schools they compete against,” Kiel said.
“This is about fairness. And right now, for Alabama’s public schools, this system is not fair at all,” Kiel said.
