The Virginia High School League, which regulates and sponsors state-wide high school athletics and other academic programs, voted at an Executive Committee meeting on Sept. 19 to approve a new classification system for its member schools. The new system, which divides the 315 schools into six classes based on enrollment and location, will overturn the present classification of A, AA and AAA schools based more loosely on enrollment. All changes will begin in the 2013-2014 school year.
“I think the six classification model that VHSL has proposed, overall, is a start to make some changes in the state to help balance things out,” Director of Student Activities Karl Kerns said.
Rising concern over the disparity between enrollments in schools competing for titles in the same group, since each group had a wide range of enrollment standards. For example, the AA group consisted of schools with between 700 and 1,500 students, which created a potentially unfair gap between a school of 700 students competing against a school of 1,500 for the same state soccer title.
“Overall, I don’t think [the new system] will have much effect; it seems like the same schedule for the regular season,” varsity football assistant coach Christopher Bagot said. “It will just affect the playoffs.”
The new system will consist of six groups, 1A-6A, and each group will be divided into East-West or North-South. Within those divisions are conferences, which contain the familiar “districts” that most people are familiar with in the current system. Regular season play will not be affected, as teams will play within their conferences, and they will compete in the postseason for a conference title. Then, teams will compete for East-West or North-South titles, replacing the current regionals title. From there, teams will compete for a state title within their classification system, meaning that 6 state champions can be crowned.
The only matter of contention over the change is the amount of unknown information that many activities directors and administrators are experiencing.
“As a Director of Student Activities representing [AHS] as a part of the Northern Region, we still have a lot of questions and at [the next meeting with VHSL] there are still a lot of things we would like to ask VHSL to get clarification,” Kerns said.
