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    Data and Reporting

    Disclosure of Interscholastic Athletic Opportunity

    Effective July 1, 2012, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed Act 82 of 2012 which requires schools to disclose Interscholastic Athletic Opportunities Disclosure Form athletic opportunities for students in grades 7-12. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has established the "FINAL" disclosure form on PDE's website for all public secondary school entities. School entities must collect this data for each school year, beginning in the 2012-13 school year. This includes public schools, joint schools, area vocational-technical schools, and all public schools having student athletes in grades 7-12th.

    The "FINAL" disclosure form is available at the links below for school entities to complete and submit to PDE on an annual basis. Please check the PIMS calendar for the deadline for submission. All non-school (booster clubs, alumni and other non-school) contributions and purchases will be collected for each PIAA sports team.

    Forms and Instructions

    Frequently Asked Questions

    General

    Act 82 of 2012 added Article XVI-C to the Public School Code of 1949 (24 P.S. § 16-1601- C), requiring PDE to collect this information.

    The law specifies the reporting grade levels of secondary students.

    No, the law only requires the collection of information directly related to interscholastic athletics.

    The law only requires the collection of information directly related to interscholastic athletics.

    The law applies to all public school entities that offer interscholastic athletic opportunities to its students in grades 7 through 12.

    No, the law only requires schools offering athletic opportunities to complete the form. School entities that do not fund athletics teams are not required to report. If your school has students participating in interscholastic athletics funded at another public school entity, that entity should include the students in its count on its form.

    Duties of PDE

    PDE's roles include: developing the disclosure form to collect data from school entities; posting forms on the department's website; and submitting an annual report concerning information contained in the completed disclosure forms to the General Assembly by January 15 of each year.

    Historical Data Collection

    If your data has not changed from the previous year, just carry over the data from last year. This information will not be pre-populated. PDE advises local education agencies (LEA) to use whatever resources are reasonably available to accurately supply the information required. By way of example, some LEAs may find old yearbooks, news clippings, or other documents found at the LEA helpful in completing this section.

    Filing of Disclosure Forms

    All public school entities that have students in grades 7 through 12 must file the disclosure form. Those LEAs that do not fund athletic teams will only complete page 1 – General Information.

    Athletes

    The school entity should choose the appropriate team to report the participants and continue each year with that same grade level team. For example, if a school entity reports the golf team as male, it can add the female numbers in the box provided. If you place co-ed teams under one gender continue through the years to come.

    LEAs should use enrollment data which would be reported in the PIMS system.

    Teams

    An athlete should be counted once on the team that they play on for the majority of the games.

    For students that participate in more than one sport or athletic program, you count the student as a participant in each program. For example, a student that plays baseball and football, should be counted twice in overall race or ethnicity and gender total counts.

    The school entity should choose which team best describes the athletes and continue to document them in this manner moving forward.

    No, you will not include any supportive cheer teams that cheer at other sport games. Competitive Cheer has an interscholastic athletic schedule and competitions.

    Coaches

    In Pennsylvania there are no full-time coaches in high school programs; they are only employed at the college level. All high school coaches are part-time.

    No.

    Yes, this should be documented under compensation.

    No, only when they coach interscholastic athletic teams that compete.

    Athletic Trainers/Athletic Director

    No, you will not include the cost or expenses for athletic directors.

    Their time should be documented, and expenses included only when they are performing athletic trainer responsibilities.

    ​When the school nurse acts as an athletic trainer, only their time spent as an athletic trainer would be documented as the expense for the team.

    They will need to account for their time as a percentage to describe how much of their time was spent with each team.

    All expenses for the in-house athletic trainers, as well as the out-sourced athletic trainers from an agency must be included in the disclosure form.

    Financials

    You should begin collecting data from July 1 – June 30.

    No, because this would be considered revenues, which is not reported.

    Each school building should complete the General Information section (page 1) of the Interscholastic Athletic Opportunities Disclosure Form. The school building where the sports team practices and plays should complete the rest of the Interscholastic Athletic Opportunities Disclosure Form. The school building where the team does not practice, and play will not have to complete the form. Their athletes should be accounted for by the school where the students go to practice.

    Additional Information and documents

    If you have specific questions, please send them to: Ra-AthleticOppReport@pa.gov