03/11/2024- Expansion Announced of KHSAA Partnership with ArbiterSports To Include School/Coach Data Management

March 12, 2024 Athletic Department Blog Updates

At its regular meeting in February, the Board heard a report from the Commissioner regarding the KHSAA online data system. The Association has long offered a first-in-class system for its Athletic Directors to manage the vast amount of data related to the athletic program, in particular, the monitoring of the various requirements for coaches. With the landscape continually changing in new and additional requirements, the Association has been reviewing, some formally and some informally, various options for the future of this vital program for a good length of time.

It is not lost on anyone on the staff the value that this service is to the membership. The system encompasses a litany of different tools to manage schedules, scores, rosters, coach data and so much more. From that data, such projects as stats, results, RPI, Title IX analysis and so many things are derived and expanded upon. This all-in-one package has served the membership well for nearly two decades, but particularly these last 13 years when the integration led to a much-improved manner for compiling the Title IX reports that are required of the member schools in state regulation.

After reviewing the entirety of the situation, the Commissioner reported at the February meeting to the Board the plans to expand the current data partnership with Arbitersports to include the management of schedules, results and coaching data. This continues a decades-long attempt to see where we can help eliminate redundancies for our member schools such as duplicate schedule entry. Using ArbiterSports for their Arbiter360 package allows continuous and seamless integration with the Association’s ticketing partner, GoFan; its streaming partner, the NFHS Network; and of course, with the other aspects currently in use Arbiter including the scheduling of contest officials by our assigners.

It’s important to lay out a couple of key other facts that will impact schools. One of the most important features of this expanded relationship is the continuity of your support. Rob Catron, our IT director, will continue to be your first line of support. Every day this will continue to be a huge portion of his position responsibility, and a task he enjoys doing and does well. We will have access from our office to excellent support from Arbiter as well, but Rob will continue to be your front line. He has even made a summary video as the first in a series related to the ultimate goals of this project that you can view online at https://ly.khsaa.org/tcna. In addition, we are quickly working to create a series of information posts and regular reports for your reference, visible only to the member schools. We have also registered the domain name khsaaschools.org, and very soon that will automatically take you to the current system. In that way, we can simply change that redirection in the future and make daily usage even more convenient. And, he is already in the midst of scheduling with ArbiterSports a series of training meetings as we work toward this SY24-25 implementation.

The first question schools will likely ask is when? While a great deal of the school system options will be ready for 24-25 around the end of the dead period, some things, such as schedule entry, will be available in a few weeks. Still other features, like Title IX reporting, may not be available until later in 2024 or early in 2025. We will keep you up to date. But for 2023-24, nothing will change including year-end reporting.

The second question would likely be “What requirements will change.” As of now, nothing will change. You will continue to be required to enter rosters and levels, schedules and scores, and coaching records into Arbiter360. This data will continue to produce various other required forms including the Title IX reports, and many other vital functions. And so many of the other features will continue plus a great many new integrated options for athletic department management. That will be the official platform, simply replacing the existing KHSAA-hosted and custom-written system.

The third question a school will likely point to is cost. For the member schools, there is no charge for Arbiter360 as that is not charged to the membership because we are partnered with GoFan, ArbiterPay and the NFHS Network. Secondly, the cost of the membership management package and coaching tools will be borne by the KHSAA. This is not an insignificant cost when that cost covers all of the member schools of the Association. There will of course be other services available from Arbiter that already exist and would integrate seamlessly with this package. Such things as school forms, athlete registration (to incorporate various electronic permissions and other forms), and other services may very well be an add-on service from them that your school chooses to use. There won’t be a mandate to use any of these add-on services, but our initial and follow-up reviews certainly show these would be wise expenditures if your school decides to use them. But again, those add-on services won’t be mandatory and your existing relationships can be evaluated on your own.

Staff members, especially the day-to-day leadership team in the office, are keenly aware that part of the immensely tough challenge with this project is the expectations created by our existing system. Working with our long-time current developer, we have created an extremely high bar that will be a challenge for any individual or company to clear. We cannot possibly express enough gratitude to our long-time software engineer, developer and friend, Frank Riherd. His passion and commitment to excellence are unsurpassed, and we wish him nothing but the best in the next chapters of his professional work, which we believe are far from over. The challenge of continuing to excel and improve in an ever-changing technical world, as well as near-constant legislative initiatives requiring new solutions, are things he has faced head-on and has always been an advocate for us staying at or ahead of the cutting edge. Our member schools, athletic directors and our office staff and Board owe him a huge debt of gratitude. We remain hopeful that he will stay involved in many ways with the association, even after this current transition, as he and his family have been ardent supporters of interscholastic athletics in so many ways.

Much more information will be shared with the membership in these coming webinars as well as various meetings. And of course, reviews at the regional meetings can again become a part, but not the entire focus of those valuable days. Many more questions that we have will continue to be answered, so please be patient if everything about what the future holds isn’t crystal clear, including the exact manner in which you and your coaches do other daily tasks for and with the Association. It seldom is in anything any of us do. Our leadership team in the office and our entire staff will continue to stay in constant communication regarding these expectations and timelines for this transition. We know that it is not realistic to expect perfection on day one, and then get better after that. We have already timelined certain expectations that we know about, i.e. spring 2025 Title IX reports, fall 2024 schedule entries, score reporting, transitioning of the sports safety course delivery, late fall implementation of transfer form submission and everything in between.

It’s an exciting yet challenging time. We look forward to working with you on this critical project. Please excuse the length of this report, but a lot has transpired in the last few weeks.