Time to move Groundhog Day to May.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association is sitting in a familiar position. Once again, the landscape of high school sports might change a month from now.

For the second consecutive year and the third time in four, the state’s principals will vote on a system that would make the most significant change to the classification system.

If the OHSAA’s latest competitive balance proposal is passed, for the first time, a school’s classification will be impacted by open enrollment and transfer students. Voting will take place the first two weeks in May, and a similar proposal was narrowly voted down in 2013.

Do not think this issue is going away, however, regardless of the result. OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross recently called this a “beginning.”

Even if passed, Ross’ competitive balance committee will continue to meet to troubleshoot the implementation of the proposal, which would go into effect for the 2016-17 school year.

“There are an awful lot of things that could happen that we don’t even realize yet,” Ross told the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association on Thursday.

If it does not pass, chances are the movement to split the public and private schools will be revived and Armageddon still could be on the horizon.

This year’s proposal again centers on open enrollment students for public schools and students who live outside of the local public district for private schools.

The heavy multiplier placed on enrollment for those students has been lessened if that student began attending its current school by seventh grade. No longer would the penalties for a current-year transfer be the same for Newark Catholic than a student from Heath that has attended Catholic schools since kindergarten.

The same rules would apply for a Licking Valley student for example that used open enrollment to leave Newark.

“We listened to our schools who said: ‘Wait a second. They open enrolled. They have been our kids. They shouldn’t count against our sport factor,’ ” Ross said.

The recent state basketball tournaments did little to quell the calls for a change to the system.

The four boys state champions were split, but five of the eight teams in the finals were private schools. Only one girls champion was private, but Africentric competing in Division III certainly carries an asterisk.

Where the proposal will have no effect is in the upper reaches of Division I. To combat the disparity between the large urban private schools and public schools such as Newark, a small super division was created for football.

Ross said the feedback for the seven football divisions in the fall generally was positive. Football, however, is considered a unique case because it is the only sport where not every team plays in the postseason.

Any tweaks or changes to the current or proposed systems would have to go back to the principals for vote each year.

If the words competitive balance have started to give you a headache, take a nap and recharge the batteries. They are not going away.

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