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We are in the process of putting a system in place. In our state, the association hires an assignment secretary. As you can imagine, there is a "learning curve" for new assigners to get a handle on the abilities of the officials, the teams that are "on the rise" and who's programs are tailing off, the lesser know rivalries, etc.
Because of those issues, we are putting together a 7 member panel of evaluators. Each evaluator will be required to observe every member of the chapter once a year...be it summer league, camps, scrimmages or games. Each evaluator will rate the official from 500 (freshman level only) to 100 (any varsity matchup) for both boys and girls. These rating will be put into the assignment software. When the assignor is ready to put officials in a game he can ask for all referees that rate 150...the software will give him a list of available officials considering coach scratches, official scratches, time necessary to reach game site, etc. He simply picks from the list then does the same for the umpire(s).
We feel this will eliminate, or greatly reduce, bias because your rating will be an average of the 7 evaluations. One of the learning curves is eliminated and officials do not have to focus on camps that the assignor will observe but can attend the ones they feel best meet their personal goals. It should also be a reality check for the officials who "have been doing this for decades" but do not attend camps or work to keep their skills at a high level.
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