Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) uses free and reduced lunch (FRL) percentages to determine football classification

[Tippy]

In 2023 69% of the students in the Lafayette school corporation received free or reduced lunch.  This was due to a federal program that provides free breakfast and lunch to all students at schools with high rates of eligibility.  16.2 % of the students in the West Lafayette School corporation are eligible for free or reduced lunch. 

[Muda69]

Frankfort High School:  https://indianagps.doe.in.gov/Summary/School/3435

74.2% Free/Reduced Lunch Rate

Football season history:  https://indianahsfootball.homestead.com/logs/Frankfort.htm#load

A correlation?

 

[Titan32]

I like this because when looking at the P/P issue that every state grapples with, more often than not folks take the approach that some action is needed to adjust the P/Ps enrollment for competitive balance.  With this method, your starting point is that the P/Ps represent a near-perfect student body participation with extracurricular, or at least as perfect as can reasonably be accomplished.  One then adjusts the public schools "down" based on their impediments/challenges.  FRL, admittedly, isn't the perfect mechanism...but it's not too bad.  I'm curious how they came up with the 40%....just throwing some numbers around it seems like a pretty good number.

[NumbersNvrLie]

Heritage Hills high school 

642 students 

33.6 FRL

Roughly 212

[oldtimeqb]

25 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

I like this because when looking at the P/P issue that every state grapples with, more often than not folks take the approach that some action is needed to adjust the P/Ps enrollment for competitive balance.  With this method, your starting point is that the P/Ps represent a near-perfect student body participation with extracurricular, or at least as perfect as can reasonably be accomplished.  One then adjusts the public schools "down" based on their impediments/challenges.  FRL, admittedly, isn't the perfect mechanism...but it's not too bad.  I'm curious how they came up with the 40%....just throwing some numbers around it seems like a pretty good number.

I saw Haubstadt at 10.9% and Owensville at 41.6%.

When it comes to sports is one elementary Elite while the other gets Kickapoo'd?

[Cloudy14]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

So you have  a "4A" school, in terms of total enrollment, that is in reality more of a "2A" sized in regards to athletic participation.  This can be traced to various socioeconomic factors where these students will almost never choose to participate in government school extracurricular athletics programs because bluntly, they have to work a part time job to either feed themselves or help keep a roof over their family's head.  Extracurricular sports are simply not a priority in their life, or their family's life.   Or, in the specific sport of American tackle football their may be societal norms where families are just not "fans" of the sport, and instead push their children into other sports like soccer, baseball, wrestling, etc. 

 

This is understandable, but I have a feeling is far more nuanced in modern times.  We have free and reduced lunches for these families, food stamps, and other forms of assistance.

I am also looking at this from the athlete perspective (which i also understand is nuanced). Think of the success stories in high school, college and pros where athletes came from families eligible for FRL. It is on the coaches, players and administration to increase participation in athletics.

Again, not saying its a poor concept, just wondering how it could be adopted.  Would FRL drop in enrollment negate an increase in class due to success factor?  How would Indiana HSAA adopt it?

[Titan32]

9 minutes ago, oldtimeqb said:

I saw Haubstadt at 10.9% and Owensville at 41.6%.

When it comes to sports is one elementary Elite while the other gets Kickapoo'd?

That's more about where the sexiest subdivisions are. 

[Titan32]

29 minutes ago, Cloudy14 said:

This is understandable, but I have a feeling is far more nuanced in modern times.  We have free and reduced lunches for these families, food stamps, and other forms of assistance.

I am also looking at this from the athlete perspective (which i also understand is nuanced). Think of the success stories in high school, college and pros where athletes came from families eligible for FRL. It is on the coaches, players and administration to increase participation in athletics.

Again, not saying its a poor concept, just wondering how it could be adopted.  Would FRL drop in enrollment negate an increase in class due to success factor?  How would Indiana HSAA adopt it?

You are looking too deeply....of course, there are kids with FRL who participate in sports and who have great stories.  The issue for Iowa was...what reliable data can we use to most effectively adjust enrollment numbers for competitive balance...albeit not perfect...but what would be the best mechanism that can be trusted and is readily available?  FRL is certainly not a perfect mechanism but a pretty damn good one as has been noted and will continue to be via the anecdotal posts on this thread.  Particpication is another good one but much harder to quantify with trustable data.  Iowa is onto something here.  If someone posts Indiana FRL numbers with football records correlated .....my hunch is that it's going to be very telling.

Edited October 15, 2024 by Titan32

[Muda69]

10 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

 If someone posts Indiana FRL numbers with football records correlated .....my hunch is that it's going to be very telling.

I basically already did that for one school:  

 

[tango]

3 hours ago, Titan32 said:

South Gibson School Corp FRL is going to run about 25%.  I will get the exact numbers soon.

Where do you even look for that kind of data? Is it online? 

[Titan32]

8 minutes ago, tango said:

Where do you even look for that kind of data? Is it online? 

I found some 2015 numbers online, but I had to go straight to administration for current numbers.

[Titan32]

2 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

I found some 2015 numbers online, but I had to go straight to administration for current numbers.

I did find current numbers by county online, but that doesn’t really help the cause.

[tango]

1 minute ago, Titan32 said:

I found some 2015 numbers online, but I had to go straight to administration for current numbers.

So as I understand it...

GS Current Enrollment 771 (per IHSAA enrollments & classifications)

Less FRL -65 (163 x 40%)

Adjusted Enrollment 706.

Is that right? 

I may be wrong (usually am), but I don't see that moving the needle all that much. For a large urban public school I get that it would. Could this also possibly be a "be careful what you wish for" kind of thing for non-urban publics if a large urban 6A gets adjusted down into 5A (or maybe even 4A)?  

[temptation]

11 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

I did find current numbers by county online, but that doesn’t really help the cause.

https://www.in.gov/doe/files/corporation-enrollment-ethnicity-free-reduced-price-meal-status-2006-24.xlsx

[MarshallCounty]

State average is 40 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunches.

[MarshallCounty]

Does this load up

 

Link to FRL

[tango]

For the record, I support an adjustment like this far more than a p/p multiplier or even a "Success Factor" that can potentially punish a group of kids for success had by their predecessors. While not perfect, it does seem to hitting the nail closer to the head. Factoring in kids with disabilities like Foxbat said seems pretty simple too.   

[WestfieldRocks]

37 minutes ago, MarshallCounty said:

Does this load up

 

Link to FRL

What year is this data? Looking at Westfield's high school number of around 1,900, that is  well short of the actual students in the high school, and the total number in the district, all grades, several thousand under the number on Temp's spreadsheet, that has numbers up to this year.

52 minutes ago, temptation said:

https://www.in.gov/doe/files/corporation-enrollment-ethnicity-free-reduced-price-meal-status-2006-24.xlsx

Yea, since this sheet includes all schools in a district, and not broken out per each school.

[temptation]

3 minutes ago, WestfieldRocks said:

What year is this data? Looking at Westfield's high school number of around 1,900, that is  well short of the actual students in the high school, and the total number in the district, all grades, several thousand under the number on Temp's spreadsheet, that has numbers up to this year.

Yea, since this sheet includes all schools in a district, and not broken out per each school.

https://www.in.gov/doe/files/school-enrollment-ethnicity-and-free-reduced-price-meal-status-2006-24.xlsx

2 hours ago, Titan32 said:

You are looking too deeply....of course, there are kids with FRL who participate in sports and who have great stories.  The issue for Iowa was...what reliable data can we use to most effectively adjust enrollment numbers for competitive balance...albeit not perfect...but what would be the best mechanism that can be trusted and is readily available?  FRL is certainly not a perfect mechanism but a pretty damn good one as has been noted and will continue to be via the anecdotal posts on this thread.  Particpication is another good one but much harder to quantify with trustable data.  Iowa is onto something here.  If someone posts Indiana FRL numbers with football records correlated .....my hunch is that it's going to be very telling.

Unless you have a significant enrollment advantage…

[tango]

33 minutes ago, tango said:

For the record, I support an adjustment like this far more than a p/p multiplier or even a "Success Factor" that can potentially punish a group of kids for success had by their predecessors. While not perfect, it does seem to hitting the nail closer to the head. Factoring in kids with disabilities like Foxbat said seems pretty simple too.   

I'm told Memorial's FRL is 15%. Curious as to whether any of the local GIDers think that is higher than expected.. 

[WestfieldRocks]

7 minutes ago, temptation said:

https://www.in.gov/doe/files/school-enrollment-ethnicity-and-free-reduced-price-meal-status-2006-24.xlsx

First, my first paragraph was not supposed to reply to Temp's initial spreadsheet. It was supposed to go to MarshallCounty's post that shared a link that looks to be outdated info.

Second, Temp, this link is great, since it has each school within the corporation listed and is current through this year. 

One thing that people around here wonder about is the dropoff in wins at Avon as far as their football team. Looking at this sheet, I was surprised that they had grown so much, over 3,400 kids at the high school this year. Of those, 41% qualify for the free or reduced lunch. That may tell a story there, as if you look back just 5 years, at the 2019 sheet, the number was around 28%. When Avon played at Westfield two weeks ago, I did not try to count, but it was obvious that they had considerably fewer players dressed compared to Westfield, but a school with about 600 more kids. Maybe because of Homecoming, Westfield dressed a bunch of younger kids that night, I don't know.

[Titan32]

46 minutes ago, WestfieldRocks said:

First, my first paragraph was not supposed to reply to Temp's initial spreadsheet. It was supposed to go to MarshallCounty's post that shared a link that looks to be outdated info.

Second, Temp, this link is great, since it has each school within the corporation listed and is current through this year. 

One thing that people around here wonder about is the dropoff in wins at Avon as far as their football team. Looking at this sheet, I was surprised that they had grown so much, over 3,400 kids at the high school this year. Of those, 41% qualify for the free or reduced lunch. That may tell a story there, as if you look back just 5 years, at the 2019 sheet, the number was around 28%. When Avon played at Westfield two weeks ago, I did not try to count, but it was obvious that they had considerably fewer players dressed compared to Westfield, but a school with about 600 more kids. Maybe because of Homecoming, Westfield dressed a bunch of younger kids that night, I don't know.

It absolutely tells a story.

58 minutes ago, tango said:

I'm told Memorial's FRL is 15%. Curious as to whether any of the local GIDers think that is higher than expected.. 

Higher than I would have expected.  

[MarkCalaway]

Are you "guys" really this soft?

[Titan32]

3 minutes ago, MarkCalaway said:

Are you "guys" really this soft?

You're right "bro" tough guys should just submit to being subjected to unfair systems.  Cuz....that's what tough guys do.  Or is it dumb guys...I get confused?

[temptation]

Lemme be clear that I’ve talked about this relationship for quite sometime but was never seriously on board with this being used to classify teams.

It explains a lot and critics on here are always quick to point out the outliers.