Encouraging High School Students to Enter the Officiating Avocation

Several state associations, including the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA), the Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), have ramped up efforts recently to encourage high school students to officiate interscholastic athletics.

The IHSAA and KSHSAA have partnered with RefReps, which offers “turn-key officiating education courses and interactive training video packs,” according to its website, www.refreps.com. RefReps provides schools with officiating education resources including instructor guides, point-of-view video training packs, support materials from Referee and assessments. High schools in Indiana and Kansas interested in offering an officiating course have purchased licenses to RefReps.

“RefReps, they own the curriculum,” said Brian Lewis, IHSAA assistant commissioner. “In order for our schools to offer the course, they purchase those licenses through RefReps. They’ve been a great partner.”

“Some of our schools are using it as an actual course,” said Fran Martin, KSHSAA assistant executive director. “Other schools are using it as a unit, maybe in a lifetime fitness class or some other PE class. Most of the RefReps courses can easily be completed in six weeks, and then we encourage schools to bring in guest speakers – be that coaches, officials, athletic directors – to talk about all of those components of officiating as well.

“Combine that curriculum with getting guest speakers that can talk about some of the other aspects of officiating other than the Xs and Os, I think it gives our kids a good start.”

In Kansas, only officials working varsity contests must be registered with the KSHSAA while the KSHSAA strongly recommends that officials working contests at all levels be registered. So, while the KSHSAA does not have exact statistics for officials coming from the high school classroom, Martin said that 10 Kansas high schools are currently utilizing RefReps to deliver course material – typically in classes of 10 to 20 students.

“It’s been kind of interesting that some of our smaller schools, who are desperately looking for officials to officiate junior high games,” Martin said. “99 percent of these students have been officiating middle school games. I think we had one young person that just honestly excelled and did work a ninth-grade basketball game. I know we had some girls that did the volleyball unit who worked some ninth-grade volleyball, but it wasn’t where their school was involved.”

The IHSAA and the KSHSAA were able to lobby their respective state’s department of education to issue a specific course number for officiating. With a course number, schools can officially work “Officiating 101” into their course offerings where students can earn credit toward graduation – typically as an elective.

Lewis said 39 students – as of mid-December – have completed and passed the sport-specific test, providing the student with a provisional license to officiate contests at the eighth-grade level and below. That number is expected to rise, however, as Lewis said more than 150 students were currently preparing to take a sport-specific test. Combined, the IHSAA expects that as many as 200 students will hold a provisional license in the coming months.

On top of that, other students are in the pipeline too, with more than 1,500 individual sport-course licenses being taken. Lewis estimated that at least 600 students are taking courses, given that students have not had the time to get through multiple courses yet since students can account for multiple sport-course licenses.

The program, Lewis said, is continuing to be expanded.

“We’ve got a lot of schools that are coming in this semester and we have even more that are starting to make room for (the course) as they’re working on schedules for next year,” Lewis said. “It’s been a positive program and we’ll know in the next two or three years what that looks like after they get out of high school if they continue to do it.”

In Pennsylvania, junior officials – and 17-year-old high school students – can now officiate contests at the ninth grade and below.

The PIAA released guidelines for the program in November, and according to PIAA guidelines, junior officials can officiate at their current school district to alleviate transportation concerns and graduate to becoming an active, registered PIAA official at 18 (or upon graduating high school) after submitting background clearances.

Pat Gebhart, PIAA assistant executive director, reported that nearly 150 high school students have become junior officials, meaning the student has passed the sport-specific exam required to officiate.

Veteran basketball coach John Crist teaches the sports officiating class at Quinter (Kansas) High School and told KSHSAA Covered the class has been a hit.

“I really wasn’t certain how (the class) was going to go over, but the kids have really liked it,” Crist said. “The kids have said that it helped them not only appreciate what the officials have to do and learn, but they said it’s helped them in their games when they were playing, knowing the rules and how things were going to be officiated.”

Overcoming Cost as a Barrier to Entry

Lewis said schools can take different approaches when covering the costs of not only the RefReps curriculum, IHSAA and local association fees, as well as uniform costs. Some schools have opted to charge fees similar to textbook fees in other courses where others have offered to cover the cost upfront in return for the student officiating middle school games to “repay” those costs – a method that reallocates officiating fees which are already budgeted.

Lewis also said the IHSAA applied for a grant from the NFHS Foundation to offset some costs of rules publications, and he expects the IHSAA to play a continued role in subsidizing license fees.

Martin said that high school students who completed the RefReps course will have an opportunity to register with the KSHSAA at a reduced fee. The KSHSAA also offers a scholarship program in which the association gives 50 scholarships each year to new officials. The scholarship pays for the official’s first year of registration fees – up to two sports – as well as trying to find a mentor for the new official.

“Most of the time, these are kids that have just graduated high school, maybe are going to college, not all of them, but that’s the majority of them,” Martin said.

PIAA junior officials can take advantage of waived PIAA registration fees and procure a uniform set at a reduced cost while receiving standard games fees.

Ultimately, state associations can reap the benefits of each other’s own growth given that high school students who attend college in another state will have a foundation in officiating.