Monroe, Rapides Parish schools granted temporary injunction in legal debate with LHSAA over non-select/select

BATON ROUGE, La. (KALB) - In an update to the ongoing legal battle over non-select/select definition for high school athletics, a Louisiana judge has granted a temporary injunction in favor of nine schools named in a lawsuit against the Louisiana High School Athletic Association.

Six of the nine schools listed in the lawsuit are from Rapides Parish, including Buckeye, Tioga, Glenmora, Northwood-Lena, Plainview and Rapides. The three other schools named are from the Monroe area, including Carroll, Neville and Wossman.

This ruling prohibits the LHSAA from implementing its current playoff format that went into place last summer to include a new definition for what a “select” school is. The injunction is still pending further legal proceedings.

According to GeauxPreps, the ruling underscores the contention that the schools should have had a say in determining the criteria for select and non-select schools.

Under the definition approved by the LHSAA executive committee last summer, open enrollment schools, magnet schools and charter schools were added to the select side of playoff brackets with private schools. That list forced every Rapides Parish public school into the select side due to being under open enrollment.

Several Rapides Parish schools, including Rapides High, spoke out publically against the LHSAA ruling, saying that they do not benefit from open enrollment as they had no current open enrollment students on campus. Last year, Northwood-Lena had just one open-enrollment student.

With the temporary injunction, the playoff formats as well as non-select/select definitions will return back to the previous formats for the sports of baseball, basketball, football and softball for the time being.

Updates will be made as more information becomes available.

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