In the ongoing struggle to achieve competitive equity between public and private high schools, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) has come up with a new plan. Its leaders have recommended establishing feeder patterns for private schools, similar to those used by public high schools. For private high schools with more than 300 students, feeder schools would include junior high schools operated by the same governing body, such as an archdiocese. Private schools with fewer than 300 students would also be able to accept student-athletes from within a 20-mile radius, in addition to those from their feeder schools.

Student-athletes who transfer outside a feeder pattern after seventh grade would lose one year of high school eligibility at any level (freshman, junior varsity, or varsity) and could not join a varsity team until their third year at the school. "The normal progression for children coming into high school is to play freshman, JV, and varsity," Wilson Sears, Superintendent of the Somerset (Ky.) school district told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "If there's a serious objection to only being allowed to play JV in their second year, there's an underlying assumption that they came strictly for athletic reasons."

Last year, KHSAA members voted to split their championships into public and private school divisions, but that idea was vetoed by the state board of education, which directed the KHSAA to come up with another plan. This new plan has been endorsed by the KHSAA Board of Control, but still requires approval from both the state board of education and the KHSAA membership before taking effect.

KHSAA members will also consider two additional proposals. One would allow only immediate family members to pay for private school costs. The other would penalize student-athletes who play up for one high school as a seventh or eighth grader and then go to a different high school for ninth grade by making them ineligible for one year at any level and two years at the varsity level, the same penalty applied to those who leave the feeder pattern.