LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The head of Catholic schools in Louisville calls it a win for parents and students.

But one public school superintendent says it's a slap in the face to dozens of public high school athletic directors and superintendents. And it might spark another move to split Kentucky high school sports championships into public and private divisions:

Trinity High School can keep getting football players from Jefferson County’s public middle schools, and those athletes won't have to sit out a year beginning next school year after a stunning unanimous vote today by a legislative committee in Frankfort:

“The net effect is that it will never go into effect.”

He's talking about Proposition 2, a controversial plan that was overwhelmingly approved by public schools, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association and state school board. It would have forced kids who play sports to decide their high school before seventh grade. If they left a public middle school for private high school or vice versa, they'd lose a year of athletic eligibility.

Lawmakers said no go.

“Well, obviously this was a big loss for the public schools.” Somerset School Superintendent Wilson Sears, who led the Prop 2 effort, says he thought lawmakers would have gotten the message from public school administrators. “I take it as somewhat of a total lack of respect for the people that work in the schools across the state of Kentucky.”

Now, some athletic directors are expecting to see a new push for separate sports championships for private and public high schools.

“I do think that public schools are going to react to this. We simply can’t continue for it to be open season on public school middle school athletes,” Sears said.

Public schools do have a slim chance of renewing their proposal to make seventh and eighth graders who transfer to different school systems ineligible to play sports for one year. They could convince state lawmakers that their plan was a good one and hope they pass a state law similar to Proposition 2.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.