Proposals 18 and 19 are for removing the 1.65 multiplier
Prop 18 is for removing the 1.65 non-boundary school multiplier. You are correct.
Prop 19 is kind of the OPPOSITE. It's for piling on even more "phantom students" to increase non-boundary schools' enrollment figure for sports by more than the 1.65 multiplier.
Here's how I read it working, and I am going to use Carmel High of Mundelein as the example so it's easier to interpret the entire proposition.
This year, Carmel enrollment for football was 1,075 which is the school's exact enrollment number.
Now, if Prop 19 passes, Carmel's 2025 enrollment base line would be 1,773. That's 1,075 X 1.65. But the 1,773 number would still not necessarily be Carmel's football enrollment number.
Carmel's football enrollment number would be the larger number of 1,773 and the average enrollment of all IHSA public schools that are within 30 miles of Carmel.
I am not going to try and figure out how many schools that is, but I can tell you that the chances of the average enrollment of public schools within 30 miles of Carmel High being MORE than 2,000 is probably 100 percent. But, let's use 2,000 as the average which then becomes Carmel's football enrollment number.
At 1,075 enrollment, Carmel plays 5A in the playoffs. With an enrollment of 2,000, Carmel plays 7A. Note that the IHSA says that Carmel can only move up maximum two classes from its multiplied enrollment number. It's multiplied number of 1,773 moves it up to 6A and its new enrollment number based on other public schools is now 2,000 which moves it up to 7A.
So Carmel becomes a 7A football school.
Another quick example is Marian Central of Woodstock, which is scuffling in football of late. It's actual enrollment this year is 389.
Multiply that by 1.65 and its multiplied enrollment is 641.
At 389, Marian is playing 2A playoff football. But its new multiplied base number will be 641 and that is 4A. Now, find the average enrollment of public schools with 30 miles of Marian Central and you have let's just guess and say the average enrollment is 1,500 which makes Marian Central a 6A team for the playoffs.
The IHSA says a school can only move up two classes for football from its multiplied enrollment figure. Marian Central was 4A with the multiplier and jumps to 6A with average enrollment of public schools nearby.
That's a FOUR-class bump.
And there's one more facet of this that is not discussed in the proposal.
Because football class enrollment size is not known until after the 256-school field is set, there is no way of knowing what class a private school base enrollment (actual enrollment X 1.65 multiplier) puts it in. That matters because the public school enrollment average can only move the school up two classes from its multiplied enrollment figure.
Given the significant number of non-boundary schools in any year's 256-school field, trying to project anything regarding brackets for the eight classes will be worthless unless you are satisfied with 1 percent accuracy.
I mean, we will know for sure that Stevenson High will be in the 8A playoffs. But we won't know if a Joliet Catholic or Providence or a Fenwick or Nazareth or Notre Dame winds up in 7A or 8A until we where they would land using their base enrollment figure of actual student total X 1.65 multiplier. Remember, from that base figure, a school can only move up two classes so that if a Joliet Catholic has a base enrollment figure of 1,592 (actual students X 1.65 multiplier), if 1,592 is 6A and average enrollment public schools is 1,800 then Joliet would move up to 7A. If average enrollment of nearby schools is less than 1,592 then Joliet will play at 1,592. And if average enrollment of nearby schools is 2,300, the Joliet will play at 8A (moved up from 5A to 6A with multiplier, and then moved up maxium of two classes from there due to enrollment average of nearby public schools).
The point is, the amount of uncertainty until 8 p.m. on the Saturday of Week 9 games is going to be huge.
I suspect the IHSA might not be up to that challenge and in any case, there is a final somewhat humorous thought:
What is Prop 18 (eliminating the 1.65 multiplier for good) passes, and Prop 19 (keeping the 1.65 multiplier and using it as the base enrollment figure to be compared to the average enrollment of nearby public schools) also passes.
Props 18 and 19 are incompatible.
Any school head who thinks the IHSA is sem-clueless too much of the time might want to vote "yes" on BOTH props.
