We can all agree that private schools are ten times different than public schools for many reasons. When considering sports, private schools should not be in the same districts as public schools. It is just unfair for privates to have to play publics in playoff games.

There are so many reasons this isn’t fair including, the stacked team, “scholarships,” and the many other privileges. For some privates, they can pretty much pick out who can and can’t get into that school of choice. Privates can offer up “academic scholarships,” which in my opinion, should not exist and sounds kind of dumb. I can see why they do that for college but that shouldn’t be meant for high school.

These private school kids, like the Academy of the Holy Names girls, come with many privileges. These advantages include having money to pay for things and getting what they want. Private schools cost money to get into and therefore if they are spending money on education, they will spend money on personal trainers and better equipment for training. Any resources would be easier access to them because they are more capable of getting to these materials.

Maybe during the season, private and public schools can play against each other for good competition or to fill in the number of games, but during districts or when it really matters, they should NOT play one another. For example, during the fall season for RHS football, we played Berkeley Preparatory School and lost. Berkeley has the money for better facilities and other things. The school went to New Orleans to play a football game. I mean what school does this? Clearly, Berkeley has funds they get into the schools because taking a whole team to a different state is a lot.

This just isn’t fair to the kids at public schools. Another perfect example of this is from the RHS softball team. During the 2018-19 season, the girls lost to Tampa Catholic and Calvary Christian. It’s almost inevitable, that when you play a private school, they’re going to win because of the advantages they have. Also, for example, Jesuit HS can’t be accused of recruiting or having kids transfer there because of an “academic scholarship” when we all know it’s probably just for that football team of theirs. Then again, Plant HS tried to do the same thing in 2019 but later got caught and had a suspension of their football coach.

Other states, including Georgia and Tennessee, have two separate districts. We should do what they do because private schools should not be winning all these state championships having like ten D1 players on the team and we’re like 90 lbs. According to the Georgia High School Association (GHSA), they have separate districts for public and private schools. On the same topic, according to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, they also have separated public and private schools so they don’t play each other. This is the same thing with Georgia and it just seems right to have two separate districts with equal levels of teams playing in both; private in one and public in the other.

This is just simply unfair. Private schools have greater resources than a public school could even imagine. There should be no way a private school should play against a public in playoffs. Each should be in their own separate tournaments and shouldn’t even cross paths once regular-season games are over. If other states can separate them into separate districts, why can’t we?