The Georgia High School Association recently unveiled its much-anticipated restructuring of the state’s high school classifications in a move designed to restore parity to the association’s 451 member schools. On August 17, the GHSA’s Executive Committee gave a collective thumbs-up to a blueprint that calls for the addition a seventh competition classification beginning in 2016 and includes a so-called “Big 44” at the top of the enrollment ladder, as well as a public/private classification. The GHSA currently consists of six classifications, from A through AAAAAA.
“This isn’t an ‘answer-all’ solution by any means, but right now, it is probably the most fair proposal we have had in a while,” says J.T. Pollock, the head football coach and athletic director at Appling County High School, and a member of the state’s Executive Committee. “We’ve been meeting on this since April, and the two ‘big dogs’ on the committee – Dave Hunter and Earl Etheridge – have been talking to schools. They brought in some ideas to the committee and, through this laborious process, we came up with a plan that includes facets from several plans.”
Hunter (Region 8-AAAAAA) and Etheridge (3-AAAAA) helped spearhead efforts on the committee, which also includes Pollock and two other athletic directors from In the Game’s Southeast Georgia coverage area: Charlton County High School’s Jesse Crews and Mike Thompson of Bacon County High School.
“Dave and Earl did a lot of the leg work, for sure,” says Thompson. “It’s hard to make everybody happy, but they were trying to do something that was best for everyone in the state, not just Metro Atlanta or South Georgia. In Atlanta, they might drive 50 miles and pass 30 schools, but down here, we can drive 50 miles and maybe not pass a single school. There are still a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, and like Dr. Phillips has said, ‘We’re a long way from the finish line.’”
The Executive Committee opened the table for suggestions from all comers and ultimately drafted a plan featuring the “best of the best” from more than a dozen proposals. The new plan calls for reclassification every four years, as opposed to the traditional two-year turnover cycle, albeit with a key oversight feature. The legislation allows for a two-year “adjustment period” designed to allow schools to move up or down in mid-classification if their school experiences drastic enrollment shifts.
“We’ll re-evaluate you at mid-cycle and move you up or down if you have grown or lost folks,” says Crews. “In the past, we might have shoved some small people up into Class AA that didn’t need to be there. We don’t want to do that to anyone. This plan went before a state oversight committee of five state senators and five state representatives, and they were all okay with the plan.”
Here are some key aspects of the new plan, which won’t shake out until after the October submission of each school’s Full Time Equivalent (FTE) figures:
- There will be eight championships in the so-called “power-ranked” sports of football, softball, basketball, and baseball.
- The GHSA will place the state’s largest 44 schools at the top of the chain. This group will consist of schools whose enrollment is approximately 2,000 or greater.
- The old Class A will be renamed “Public/Private”. There are 33 schools in GHSA that don’t play football and will be taken out of the mix for the purpose of figuring percentages upon which the five remaining classes will be based. Twenty-eight of the aforementioned schools will be placed in the “Public/Private” classification, with the other five schools being added back into the mix elsewhere.
- There are 24 teams in both the public and private playoffs in the new proposal. The top eight schools on each side will receive a bye during the opening round of the playoffs, while 16 other teams will compete in round-one action.
- Remaining schools not placed in either the “Big 44” or the “Public/Private” division will then be divided up among five classifications – Classes A through AAAAA – with 19 to 21 percent of the remaining total of schools being allotted to each of those classifications.
- The plan calls for implementation of a “multiplier” in cases where more than three percent of a school’s students come from outside the county in which the school is located. If a school exceeds that percentage, it will be required to move up one classification. However, this caveat applies only to those schools assigned to classes A through AAAA. Schools have the right to appeal such a decision.
- Schools may still opt to “play up” in a higher classification. If such a request is approved, the smallest school in the higher classification involved would then ask its smallest school to play down a classification in an effort to maintain balance among all classes.
SE-SF-10.15-Realignment
Bonus/Southeast/Oct. 2015
Story by John DuPont
Photography: None
GHSA Will Expand to 7 Classifications
