New York's PSAL (Public School Athletic League) new policies
- Students at schools with under five teams get first crack at individual access programs.
- In New York, the students who are interested in a sport their school doesn’t offer are assigned to a new building by the PSAL. Those students do have to try out and make the team.
- The PSAL’s 2023 initiative known as the All-Access Program allows high school athletes to openly play a sport at another school in their district. This policy intends to “increase access to PSAL programming for schools that have traditionally been underserved.”
PSAL's four different solutions to resolving disparity:
- New Access,
New Access allowed nine high schools that had no sports teams the ability to jumpstart two new teams.Shared Access - Shared Access permitted multiple schools in proximity to one another to create one large athletic program to give students more access to a greater number of sports.
- Individual Access,
Individual Access involves creating opportunities for students to attend other schools for their sports teams, while staying enrolled in their primary school. - New Team Creation
New Team Creation grants funding to schools in order to create a minimum of 6 teams per school.
Program would help create new relationships between people of different schools.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for students from other schools to explore their hobbies while also creating connections.”
“Personally, I really like to play volleyball and if we didn’t have that sport in our school, I would be happy to go to a nearby school to play,” added sophomore Jaica Derecho. “You can also make new friends and make connections with people from other schools.”
Sophomore Jenny Ren said, “It was kind of clever of them to design the new PSAL policy. This is giving students the opportunity to travel to a different school and play for a sport that they want to, even if it means cheering on a different school’s team.”
In New York's PSAL, there is also a MPL.
The MPL stands for Multiple Pathways League which is a league within the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL). It is a league that provides opportunities for students who attend transfer schools, alternative schools, and schools with under five teams.
In PA high schools, students who attend a school that does not have a specific sport's team that their school are mostly out of luck.
For example, a student who wants to be on a swim team but swimming is not offered at his or her school, are not able to be assigned to another school's team.
- Swimmers can compete as an independent, generally.
- Students who want to play water polo are out of luck.
