How many high school classifications does your state have?

As far as my last state, Idaho is simply ridiculous. Six classes, with most classes having a very small number of schools. In football, the percentage of teams making the playoffs is nothing short of absurdity. In 2A, 16 schools make the football playoffs. There are 21 2A schools in the state, for a percentage of 76.2 making the playoffs.

This makes for some matchups that just do not need to happen. In one game, Malad beat Firth 61-13. Another year, Fruitland drilled Orofino 67-6. Nobody benefits from that. Idaho has three classes too many.

 

Wyoming has five for football, four for basketball/volleyball/track, three for wrestling/cross country/golf, and two or one for everything else. Enrollment cutoffs are the same across sports except for football.

The trick in Wyoming? Only 71 high schools in the state. Only 63 play football. Almost no co-ops due to the distances between schools.

 

It seems like the classification system in most states is pretty screwy. I guess the question is, is there a state that has a system that actually makes sense and can be modeled after?

 

Longest league travel game: Lee Vining to Baker. Central Section needs to absorb Atascadero, LA Section needs to take on a few schools. Like your idea of a High/Low desert-IE section and the OC, Long Beach section.

 

Kansas' system is based on six classes. There are six classes for every sport, at least technically, with lower classes combined in sports in which there are fewer than the minimum playing (which I think is 24 schools).

Class 1A was split into two divisions this year (Taking the 98 schools and splitting them down the middle) but only for volleyball, basketball and Scholars' Bowl. And with co-ops or schools not having enough players to field a team for one gender, 1A basketball could have the same school playing in different divisions for boys and girls.

Football has 7 classes with 2-1A combined and two eight-man divisions.
Volleyball, girls' and boys' basketball, track and boys' golf are the only sports in which all six classes compete without having some sport of combined class somewhere (although boys' golf does also have a "Sand Greens" title).
Girls' gymnastics has no classes because only about 16 schools have it. If too many more drop it, the state will stop sanctioning it.

Class 6A has the largest 32 schools, 5A the next 32, 4A the next 64, 3A the next 64, 2A the next 64 and 1A everyone that's left.

Schools that co-op are assigned the class the co-op fits into when the enrollments are combined. So there's been a couple of years when there are 65 schools competing in one of the classes in a sport.

No multiplier for the private schools (there aren't that many) although that's been discussed. Private schools get more than their share of state titles in Class 5A (none are large enough to be in 6A) and there's always bitching about Pittsburg Colgan's dominance in Class 2A.

There's also talk of changing the cutoff point for Class 4A, maybe to 48 schools, because the disparity between the largest and smallest schools in that class is the greatest. There are schools with around 700 students competing with schools with about 200 in that class and the smallest 4A schools actually would fit better in Class 3A, which goes from about 180-120 students.

 

Virginia did, until it split its classes.

 

Georgia:

GHSA is the public school organization and any private schools that want to play with them. There are five classifications for all sports and it's enrollment based. A, AA, AAA, AAAA, and AAAAA. Some sports will combine classifications if there is low participation (swimming, volleyball, etc.) If you're a private school competing in the GHSA, you enrollment is counted 1.5 times, a rule introduced (I think in the 60s or 70s) to prevent recruiting from having such a large effect.

GISA is the private school organization. They have three classifications (A, AA and AAA). They will combine classifications in sports if the participation is low. The GISA was hurt this year when a powerhouse school in Macon jumped ship and went GHSA. I think, we will start seeing the gradual shift when the remaining schools realize that playing the same team over and over sucks.

That's because, by law, GHSA teams cannot compete against GISA schools. So you get a city like Macon, with, I think, 8 private schools to 6 public schools, and they can't play each other. Most of the Atlanta private schools already compete in GHSA.

 

Central's last two coastal member, Mission Prep and Coast Union, just went back to Southern where they belong. I'd like to see LA and OC combined into a power section, definitely, have San Diego take in everything along the border out to the Colorado River (and maybe even Yuma, if they ever wanted to leave AIA), a Eesert section for the likes of Palm Springs, Barstow, and maybe San Bernardino-Riverside, and, oh heck, why not one in Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo?

We can dream, can't we?

 

I'm amazed at how many state champs some of the sparsely populated states crown.
In Ohio every division is divided equally based on enrollment.
There are 823 high schools here's how they determine the number of divisions for each sport:
750 or more schools that sponsor a certain sport 4 divisions (basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball)
749-500 schools three divisions (wrestling, outdoor track, cross country, soccer, boys golf)
250-499 schools two divisions (swimming, tennis, girls golf)
150-249 schools one division (bowling, girls gymnastics, ice hockey, field hockey)
You have to have 150 teams before the OHSAA sponsors the sport (boys volleyball and lacrosse aren't there yet)
Football on the other hand splits the schools into six equal divisions by enrollment (usually about 125 schools per division) 32 make the playoffs in each division. They were going to have Super Division I a few years back that would have had just 64 teams with 32 making the playoffs. It would have put about 170 schools in the small school division. Most of the 30 schools in our coverage area are in the smallest division we wrote a series of stories about the change, stirred things up and the OHSAA ended up scrapping the plan.

 

I guess I should add that while Louisiana has seven classes, it has a division set up for some sports. But for the major sports, the seven classes apply. In, say, soccer, all 5As are Division I, all 4As are Division II and D-III is everybody else.

 

Oregon...we have a 6-class system...moved to that from 4 in 2007. Not a fan at all. Not only does it water down the meaning of a state title, but more and more I'm finding it makes our jobs more difficult. The leagues used to go 8-10 schools deep, now they are splintered 5-6 team divisions. No longer do we have the crossover games that allowed us to give greater coverage to our area. Now, we are forced to choose going to this team's game, while missing another school's.

There have been a few schools that have dropped off the map in our coverage simply because we don't have the staff to cover the new league alignments that have popped up.