Council Minutes

Report of the Scholastic Council Meeting, December 2, 2000

On Saturday, December 2nd, 2000, the USCF Scholastic Council held its first meeting at the New Windsor office.  Council Co-Chair, Pat Hoekstra, council members  Robert Ferguson, Beatriz Marinello, and myself were joined by Executive Board member, Joe Ippolito, the USCF Executive Director, George De Feis and Scholastic Director, Tom Brownscombe.  Council member, De Knudson was unable to attend. Our meeting commenced about 8:00 AM and continued until 6:30 PM.  We had a large agenda and the items generated a considerable amount of discussion.  I think we stayed on task accomplishing our goal of addressing every item on our list. 

                                                    AGENDA

1. Scholastic Regulations

             a. Policies, role of council, scholastic director, executive director, etc.

             b. Details and changes

             c. Current Issues regarding interpretation of the regulations and the application of them to the Nationals. examples: school eligibility, trophy size and number, club teams, spectators, etc.

2. All America Team Selection

3. Council Involvement in the Denker Selection Process and the Koltanowski Exhibition Tours

4. Internet Competition of Scholastic Players and the Impact of Ratings Submission Problems on Scholastic Chess

5. Ethics

6. Certification of Chess Coaches

7. Issues Involving both the Scholastics and Education Committee

8. Miscellaneous Issues: Bar Code Reader, TLA Price Increase, National Scholar Chess Player Award

9. Discussion of Steve Lipschultz’s Think Like a King Software

10. Determine the goals/projects of the sub committees

We decided to handle the issues that we believed would require the least amount of time to generate a consensus. The University School of Nova in Coral Gables, FL was being challenged as existing in two buildings and thus not qualified to be regarded as a single school under the guidelines.  The Principal had sent letters and documentation to the office supporting his claim to be a single school.  The school qualified on all accounts except the requirement that all students have classes in one building.  Therefore we had to reject their single school status.  Tom Brownscombe was given the task of communicating our decision to them.  As they had won a trophy at the National Elementary Championships in Dallas, they were forced to relinquish the title.

An issue on a problem that was appearing  in the selection of the All America Team was brought to our attention.  After obtaining a qualifying rating, players were not playing  in tournaments in order to avoid jeopardizing that rating.  Several articulate arguments were presented to use peak ratings instead of the latest rating. George John has been working on a formula that will enable the USCF to determine these peak ratings. Beatriz Marinello pointed out that an existing program is already housed at USCF. Laura Martz from the USCF office will look into this and report back.

We were alerted to a problem involving the Denker Tournament of High School Championships.  One state was represented by a player who had graduated from high school one to two years earlier and wanted to receive his financial stipend for participation.  We were told Grandmaster Denker wanted to give him the money rather than make it an issue.  Although we were all opposed to the idea of giving the young man anything at all, we decided that Grandmaster Denker and the Denker Committee should regulate the Denker Tournament.  The Scholastic Committee does not have any jurisdiction in this area.

At a  request submitted by Bill Cornwall we discussed, the question as to who should represent the U.S. in the World Youth Tournament.  F.I.D.E. relies on local affiliated federations to determine eligibility for its World Youth and Pan Am Youth Championships.  For U.S. participants in the Pan Am Youth, the February rating list is used to determine the top male and female player in each of five age categories.  For the World Youth, players with the top three, peak ratings as of the April list are selected as candidates.  Each is asked to write an essay from which one male and one female in each age category is selected.  The expenses of these players are paid by the USCF.  The candidates who are not selected are permitted to play if they pay their own expenses.  Some players who were not among the top three on the ratings list were asking to play and offering to pay their own expenses.  The recommendation which was unanimously accepted was to permit only the three candidates selected as of the April list to participate in the World Youth.

We were very excited to hear of an idea presented to us by Helen Warren.  A series of seminars in honor of George Koltanowski will be held for youth by selected grandmasters.  We thought it was a tremendous opportunity to carry on the spirit of George’s commitment to youth.  Many of us had had the pleasure of seeing Koltanowski in action.  We wondered whether any of his old presentations had been preserved on film or videotape.  The Council recommended that a curriculum be established to guarantee the high level of standards that the name Koltanowski implies and a grandmaster evaluation form be developed.  We asked Joe Ippolito to thank Helen for bringing this fine idea to our attention and to get her thoughts about how she feels we can assist.

As we extend our efforts into scholastic chess,  we thought two areas that we would inevitably face are issues that jointly concern education as well as scholastics and the problem of networking the many groups involved nationwide in delivering service to the scholastic community.  The question of developing a system of certification of chess coaches brings the scholastics and education communities together.  The establishment of a process of certification leads directly to the development of a curriculum.  Thus some of our work may parallel the Education Committee.  We think we need to establish a level of communication with them so that we are aware of each other’s activities.  Some joint endeavors might be possible. The Coach’s Certification Program which was the brainchild of Tom Brownscombe will head a subcommittee to develop it.  He stressed it is not intended to deprive anyone of their present job of teaching chess.  We merely want to be in a position to respond to requests to provide local groups with some standardized information about chess instructors in their area.

We believe there is a great opportunity to develop a national network of local chess groups.  Beatriz has been promoting this idea and was actively  pursuing it when she was scholastic director.  We could develop a form to be sent electronically to each chess program brought to our attention.  On this form we can request information about the group’s number of players, range of ability, frequency of tournament play, range of age,  type of competition (over the board, on-line, large Swiss, in house round robins, etc.).  Are they looking to provide help and instruction to students or are they looking to be helped in providing services to students?  Are they looking to establish contacts with other groups? Which USCF activities interest them and do they have any specific requests of the USCF?

                                       SUB COMMITTEES

We established a number of sub committees and are looking for scholastic members to join them. We think that small groups of  committee members working in areas of interest will accomplish much more than one large committee.  They may find it easier to meet at one location or to work by phone or computer.  Our next project is to staff each sub committee asking them to develop goals and timelines.  The following is a list of sub committees that we suggested and those who have currently volunteered to participate on them.

Scholastic Rules and Regulations                  De Knudson, Steve Shutt, and Mike Nietman

Scholastic Ethics                                         Steven Kamp and Pat Hoekstra

Coaches Certification                                  Sunil Weeramantry, Robert Ferguson, Kevin Bachelor, Mike                                                                    Spohn, and Alexey Root

Coach Mentoring                                        Alan Kirshner and Steve Shutt

National Networking                                   Beatriz Marinello, Pat Hoekstra, and Mike Spohn

Scholastic Internet Chess                             Steve Shutt and George John

Scholastics and Education                            Steve Shutt

Grants and Sponsorship

Steve Lipschultz has been developing a comprehensive package of software called “Think Like a King.” It will manage a chess club providing chess instruction at a computer keeping track of student progress and generating certificates and printouts of student accomplishments.  It includes take home components and can be expanded to include competition between school teams.  Additional software that will permit Multi-board matches to be played at one computer can be developed.  He wants to offer the USCF exclusive rights to this software and make it a standard for chess instruction in the US. He believes corporate sponsors can be found who will support to place this in every school that wants it.  I offered to examine a copy of the school management component, which I purchased, and report the results to the scholastic committee.

As a number of scholastic people as well as other USCF members have been expressing concern (an understatement), we asked Laura who handles the ratings to discuss the current status including difficulties of updating the ratings following tournament submissions.  We were hearing disturbing news from scholastic tournament organizers who were waiting months to receive rating updates following the submission of their tournament reports. Some claimed after some investigation the reason give was that a tournament  would not be rated if any of the players were not current members at the time of submission.  This seems to occur more frequently with large scholastic events in which hundreds of players may enter and need to be registered in a short time.  It is apparently easy for a few to slip through the cracks.  The organizers are being driven apoplectic when they are not given any reason why the tournament is not included among those rated.  I heard this same complaint from two very large scholastic organizers who bring in hundreds of new members every year. Both are considering running non rated events in the future.  This was the single biggest complaint at the coaches’ meeting at the K-12 Scholastic Grade Championships in Orlando.  As the Orlando event was held two weeks after our meeting in New Windsor, we were unaware how strong these feelings were at the time.  After further research, I realize that the USCF is under attack from all directions, not just scholastics, over this one concern. This may be the single biggest issue jeopardizing the future of our organization.  Another reason for our request to talk directly with the ratings person was to find our about the progress of working relationship with US ChessLive. At a meeting at the US Open in St. Paul which was attended by members of the scholastic committee, George De Feis, and the developers of US ChessLive we were introduced to this new system.  It had been suggested that this service might one day provide the answer to our obsolete and problem laden computer system by incorporating our over the board ratings into their system. There were no guarantees; but the mere suggestion of a possibility of an instant rating was better than a promise of eternal life  to long suffering tournament players. What we found was not so hopeful.  We knew from the St. Paul meeting that the interaction between the USCF computers and those at US ChessLive was going to be complex.  The USCF has sensitive personal information concerning names, addresses, birth dates, etc. of minors.  It cannot permit unrestricted access to its data base by a private company that could potentially market the information to other sources.  The challenge is to find a way of providing a limited access to the USCF database providing only information as to whether a person signing up for US ChessLive is a USCF member or not.  At the time of our December 2nd meeting, this had not been resolved.  The two computer systems were unable to communicate to each other and the problems this was causing was consuming all of Laura’s time.  She was literally being swamped and has been unable to handle tournament submissions that are incomplete because of a non member participant or other reason.  Other mistakes that delay the rating of a tournament are the incorrect transcribing of the digits of the ID number by the organizer.  This is not impossible if you are running a large tournament with hundreds of entries.  One of my own players lost points at a tournament he never attended because his ID was mistakenly attributed to someone else.  I asked how this was possible and why the computer would not kick out an ID that did not match the name in the database.  We were told that the programmers who designed the pairing programs that electronically submit the data to the USCF do not include a field for the name as the USCF software is not set up to handle that field. It is just too old.  Furthermore, we are constantly placing additional requirements on this system. We are modifying the rating formula and we will be adding two additional points to a player’s rating for each game played.  Could the near future hold the complete collapse of the whole system.  Some have expressed that opinion to me.  As I have not talked to the office concerning the ratings since the meeting, I do not know if they have made any progress, recently.  Pat and I will be meeting with George De Feis and the Executive Board on January 20-21 at the Board Meeting in Miami.  We would appreciate information from any of you that would give us some insight as to the extent of the problems of ratings delays or mistakes.

Before going into the main event, I will mention  a concern some organizers have expressed to me.  The recent increase in the cost of TLAs has upset those who run small events. If you are running a low margin operation, the difference can be significant.  Most have little choice as the magazine is the primary way for non club TDs to advertise.  I suggested to George De Feis that a simple on line template consisting of the bare bones necessities should cut costs by standardizing the small tournament announcements.  He is going to look into the idea.

The most important item on the Scholastic Council’s agenda (or so we thought before the meeting ) which we were going to tackle first was actually the last item we discussed.  We were afraid that anything that came after it on the agenda would probably never be mentioned.  Tom and George had spent a considerable amount of time examining our scholastic regulations in detail.  They rewrote parts to clarify our points and to organize them in a more natural flow.  Although I admit I was suspicious at first and was sure I was going to unearth an attempt at usurping the scholastic committee’s power and vesting it in the office, I found George to be quite agreeable to the prospect of our monitoring the details of a national championship and very willing to accept our right to  impose certain compulsory standards which we believe are necessary to the success of such a venture.  He is taking the position that the office needs to be more involved and at an earlier stage in the process of developing the bids.  He believes that if the office is not given a bid until its completion, there may be no time to examine the contracts under that bid which may require immediate signatures.  The financial success of the event will vary depending on the business savvy of the individual organizer.  George would like to hire a part time person to develop bids for the USCF.  George also fears that with the growth of the Nationals we may be faced, in the near future, with fewer organizers who can handle all the work themselves.  To facilitate this idea, he has developed a form as an appendix to the Regulations.  It is an invitation to solicit bids in which an organizer provides specific information concerning his proposal. This was the most controversial item we discussed.  Some members of the council including myself are concerned that the USCF may not increase the financial return on the Nationals enough to offset the cost of this additional part time person.  Much of the work done at any National Championship is volunteer work recruited by the chief organizer.  If the organizer believes that he or she is losing control over the event or it does not reflect his dream, will there be the effort needed to recruit the volunteers and how effectively can someone from the office micro manage an event of this complexity.  On the other hand we may have trouble finding organizers willing to handle these constantly growing monsters. The USCF may  have to become involved out of necessity.  I think we left the meeting with a lot of uncertainty regarding this issue.

We discussed the SuperNationals to be held in Kansas City this April.  There is a considerable difference of opinion as to how much profit this event is likely to generate.  The office maintains that new, unapproved costs are constantly being added, while Ralph Bowman, the organizer and former Scholastic Committee Chairman, believes there will be enough additional donations to more than cover the extra costs.  The Scholastic Council believes that the best approach is to support Ralph and try to provide assistance should he require it.  After all, he is an experienced scholastic organizer.  Even if this event does not make as much money as anticipated, it appears it may provide a level of service to players never before equaled in scholastic chess history.  Many scholastic people believe that improving quality is the primary goal of scholastics not to generate large profits for the USCF.  Although if ever we needed a large profit from a tournament it is now. The USCF’s life may depend on it.  We all wish Ralph the best of both worlds.

Much of our time was spent modifying parts of the Regulations.  It seems to be an endless job.  As soon as you think you are finished, someone points out another part that needs to be changed.  One problem, and it is an enjoyable problem, is that  each organizer tries to outdo the previous organizers.  Each year there are more trophies and bigger trophies than the year before.  In Knoxville, when they provided trophies that matched the minimum defined in the guidelines, there was almost a lynching.  We have increased the specifications on trophies, square footage per player, etc.  We have included as requirements services that were originally added as  tournament luxuries by generous organizers in the past.  Today we could not imagine not having our team rooms, alpha listings of pairings, and now team pairing sheets which include all players from a school regardless of section.  We have also tried to develop compromise wording that will prevent organizers or TDs from arbitrarily eliminating spectators from the playing hall of the high school and junior high sections without any specific reason. Other problems involve the emergence of clubs and home schooled teams.  There seems to be no rule or definition that will work in defining this complex relationship.  In some areas club teams were so large they dominated the pairings. In other places, recruiting battles were fought over players.  As the USCF is responsible for six major scholastic tournaments, the Council worked on a compromise solution that we hope will encourage the further development of clubs without impacting of developing school teams.  Some scholastic events will be open to school teams only and others will be open to club teams.  The High School, Junior High, and Elementary School National Championships in the Spring and the K-12 Grade Championships in the fall will be for scholastic teams only.  The US Junior Chess Congress and the National Scholastic Action Championship will be open to club teams.  We think the inclusion of club teams exclusively to these latter events will give these tournaments a needed shot in the arm and produce two more events to rival the big scholastic tournaments.

We appreciate the time Al Losoff spent in suggesting certain changes regarding areas of concern to the TD. In recognizing his expertise in these areas his ideas were quickly approved. We also made a number of other changes. I will not attempt to list them, but each member of the scholastic committee will receive a full copy of the Regulations from Tom Brownscombe.  Please read them carefully and email to Pat and me any concerns, suggestions, or even approval of them.  Tom has spent an incredible amount of time in constantly revising this growing document.  Pat and Steve do want to present it to the Policy Board at its next meeting  on January 20th.  Please send any comments  a week before that meeting to give us time to present your suggestions to the other committee members for comment and approval prior to the meeting.

Robert Ferguson concluded our meeting with a couple of suggestions. One is that  the USCF consider a bar code reader. TDs will slide a hard plastic membership card through the reader which is connected to the USCF computers (God, the implications of that just occurred to me) and instantly get current membership information. (I’ll bet poor Laura can hardly wait).  It is a great idea and I hope we can do it some day.  Bob also generated a form to provide some guidelines for the selection process of the National Scholar-Chess player Award. The form was simple and yet very logical and analytical. It was well thought out as  Bob’s ideas always are.  We thought the same concept  might be useful in evaluating tournament bids.

Pat and Steve wish to thank everyone for their tireless energy and good humor during a very long day.  A special thanks to Joe Ippolito whose familiarity with the issues and his ability to maintain focus on the key issues was a great assistance to all of us.

                                                                              Pat and Steve

Report of the Scholastic Council Meeting, from Kansas City April 2001  

All five council members Bob Ferguson, Pat Hoekstra, De Knudson, Beatriz Marinello, and Steve Shutt met in Kansas City, Mo. in April, 2001 during the SuperNationals.  Tom Brownscombe, George De Feis, and Joe Ippolito also participated in the productive meeting.  Following is a brief summary of those meetings.

Coaches Certification was discussed in length with a subcommittee being formed consisting of Scholastic Committee members Bob Ferguson, Alexey Root, Sunil Weeramantry, and USCF Scholastic Director Tom Brownscombe.   A deadline of June 30, 2001 was established for a first draft and these fine people wasted no time meeting and writing a first draft which was ready for presentation when the Scholastic Council met with the Executive Board April 26, 2001.

A subcommittee for National Networking was formed with Scholastic Council members  Pat Hoekstra, De Knudson, and Beatriz Marinello volunteering to work on this committee.  Beatriz Marinello requested that Joe Ippolito also be a part of this committee and he accepted.  Beatriz suggested that this committee work closely with the Outreach Committee to:  (1) Have a volunteer from each state to share opinions, data, needs within their chess community, desired services, services provided, etc.  A database from each state will be made to share on a central USCF web site.

An improved method of rating tournaments is of immediate importance.  A lively discussion involved the following:  (1) Steve suggested having organizer leave credit card number on file at USCF office so that tournaments can be rated immediately.  (2) Appoint committee of Tom Doan, Mark Glickman, George John, Al Losoff, and Ernie Schick and ask them to make a USCF office visit, to work with office staff, and to make recommendations for person to hire for technical aspects.  (3) Beatriz reported that CIS already has their own rating system.  (4)  Recommendation to have qualified volunteers assist with data input for national tournaments three months in advance of tournament. (5) Beatriz Marinello volunteered to collect information regarding effects of new rating system on scholastics.

The reduction of the number of School Mates issues is a concern.  The consensus was that six issues per year would be better. Professional staff states that due to budget and inadequate number of personnel the present quarterly issue would need to stay in place.   Also, De Knudson suggested a Scholastic Council member write a column in each issue which would help the scholastic chess community be informed regarding current issues.

Question:

Could School Mates be put on line?  De Knudson suggested that we use a banner on main USCF web site to advertise tournaments.  Joe Ippolito said that we can use USCF's bulletin board presently.

Advertising methods of available USCF trust funds included:  advertising on USCF web site, mention at coaches meetings.  It was decided to add this item to the Networking Committee.  Harold Winston and  Frank Niro invited Pat Hoekstra, Steve Shutt, and De Knudson for a meeting to discuss ways that the trust fund can be helpful to scholastics.  It was a pleasant meeting with a pledge for financial assistance made to be used for the Scholar Chessplayer Achievement Awards next year.  Harold Winston and Frank Niro demonstrated a genuine interest and willingness to support scholastic chess.  Pete Nixon joined the meeting late (can't be two places at once - he was TDing as well).

Frank Niro brought us up to date on the development of auto sensory boards. Frank Niro and Shane Samole met in Little Rock, Ark to discuss a prototype for a sensory board.  Shane Samole has agreed to provide financial assistance for this endeavor.  The Scholastic Council has invited Frank and Shane to meet with them at the U. S. Open in Framingham in August, 2001 for further discussion.

Discussion concerning US ChessLive included:  (1)  Steve Shutt expressed the importance of privacy issues with registered scholastic players.  (2)  It was agreed by all to ask Laura Metz to check ID #'s, Pin #'s, and Names. (3) Beatriz suggested having names of institutions provided.  (4) George De Feis suggested that a "qualifier" be included.

A committee was formed to search for financial sponsorship for scholastics. Steve Shutt, Pat Hoekstra, and Joe Ippolito agreed to be on this committee.  

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