Realignment, and it feels not so good.
Maybe no word sparks more concern and controversy among Tar Heel high school athletics fans than the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s quadrennial process of placing teams into classifications and conferences.
The NCHSAA is currently in the midst of perhaps the most significant realignment in the organization’s history, with member schools approving a bylaw change last year that limits classifications to no more than 64 schools. That then led to a decision to adopt an eight-classification model for the 2025-29 alignment, doubling the current number of classes.
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So what does all of that potentially mean for Polk County, which has been classified a 3A school in the new alignment? Here are some answers and thoughts on the current state of the realignment process:
If there are 434 schools in this alignment, and 434/64 is 6.8, how did we wind up with eight classifications?
New schools open every year, and the NCHSAA wanted to have room to place new schools in a class without going over the 64-school limit. So the decision was made to adopt more classes now in order to leave room for the new schools to come in the next four years; at seven classes, the NCHSAA would have already been near capacity in each class.
Based on feedback from member schools, the NCHSAA Bylaws Committee also recommended that the 32 largest schools comprise Class 8A. This “Big 32” setup, the committee said, would help reduce the gap in enrollment among the larger schools and help balance classes from 7A down. So Class 8A will be 32 schools, Classes 2-7A will be 59 schools each and Class 1A is 58 schools.
Is this realignment solely based on enrollment or does it include other factors?
NCHSAA realignments were always solely based on enrollment until the current alignment, which went into effect in 2021. For this one, enrollment was one of three factors used in a special formula that assigned a score to each school, the other factors including an average of Wells Fargo State Cup points and an average of each school’s Identified Student Percentage (ISP), a measure of the number of students in a school or district eligible for free or reduced meals.
The approach created even more controversy than usual as many didn’t understand it. Polk County, for example, was classified a 2A school despite having the same enrollment as Mountain Heritage, which drew a 1A classification.
Legislative action mandated that the NCHSAA only use student enrollment going forward for realignments, and that’s the case for the one now in process for 2025.
What’s ADM?
Average Daily Membership, which is the enrollment number used for each school. The number is as it sounds – an average of the number of students at school each day, and for this realignment, it’s the average for the first 20 days of the current school year.
What is Polk County’s ADM?
Polk County has an ADM figure of 660 students for the realignment.
Polk County High School has grown that much in recent years?
There’s a complex question. . .
Polk’s ADM for the 2021 realignment process was 614 students. That’s because prior to the 2017 realignment, the Polk County Board of Education voted to not allow students at Polk County Early College to participate in athletics at PCHS. That move was basically to help keep Polk County High’s ADM as low as possible, and it worked – the school was placed in the 1A ranks for the 2017-2021 alignment (there was another factor that helped just as much. More on that in a moment).
For what it’s worth. had enrollment been the sole factor in the 2021 realignment, Polk County likely still would have begun the four-year period as a 2A school, with the expected 1A/2A dividing line to have been around 585-590 students.
The Polk board’s decision was not unique – Johnston County Schools voted in August of this year not to allow students at its early colleges and virtual academies to take part in athletics. At that meeting, the board’s vice chairman said, “When you have schools that are on the borderline, it affects your athletics and your athletic program for everybody in that school.”
That’s definitely a realignment-related move.
Back to Polk County. When PCHS was placed in 2A for the 2021-2025 alignment, the Board of Education decided to reverse policy and allow Early College students to take part in athletics. So that total of 660 students includes both students at Polk County High School and Polk County Early College.
What if the PCEC students were again barred from athletics?
Without the Early College students, Polk County’s ADM would still be around 605-610 students. That would keep the school in the 3A class, which at present ends with Eastern Randolph and its 585 students.
It’s rare – really rare – that the NCHSAA allows a school to drop a class based on 20 students. But that would also mean dropping Polk past 7-8 other schools, and that is even more unlikely to happen.
Any other factors involved?
Well, now that you ask. . .
Go back to the 2017 realignment, one in which former Polk County Schools Superintendent Bill Miller played a key role as president of the NCHSAA Board of Directors. In that realignment, 20 percent of schools were placed in 4A, with 30 percent in 3A, 30 percent in 2A and 20 percent in 1A. Polk County’s ADM for that alignment was 633 students – not including PCEC – and the school would normally have been placed in the 2A ranks.
Except that Miller and others helped add a provision to the process that non-football playing schools would not be considered when dividing by the 20-30-30-20 guideline, but instead just added to 1A following the division. That change, plus the PCEC switch, kept Polk County in 1A for the 2017-2021 period – otherwise, Polk would have continuously been a 2A school since the 2009-2010 season.
Truth is that the growing number of small charter schools that only play a few sports, but do seek NCHSAA membership, now fill much of the 1A ranks and will definitely do so in the new alignment. This season there are 122 schools in 1A, but only 67 of those fielded a football team eligible for the NCHSAA playoffs. There were only 31 eligible schools this season in 1A East, meaning every school could automatically qualify for the playoffs, with the top seed guaranteed a bye (three schools actually received byes as two of the 31 East teams opted out of the playoffs).
All of those non-football playing schools will not be in 1A in the new alignment, and not all are charter schools – there are public schools that didn’t field varsity football teams this season. But the point is that there are a LOT of small charter and private schools now that are NCHSAA members, and those small schools are pushing schools such as Polk County higher up in classification even if their enrollments are remaining largely flat.
OK, so Polk County is going to be in 3A. What about conferences?
With schools set in classifications, the Realignment Committee is now at work on the process of drawing up conferences and getting a lot of feedback from member schools while doing so.
A. Lot.
Polk County school officials have already expressed their desire to see the old Western Highlands Conference reborn as a 3A/2A conference with Polk, Hendersonville, Madison, Mountain Heritage and Owen as 3A members and Avery and Mitchell as 2A members. The remaining schools also support that, and it may help the cause that there are no other 2A schools near Avery and Mitchell – Alleghany is the next closest, and it’s 90 minutes from Avery. Plus, if a group of schools expresses interest in forming a conference, the NCHSAA often goes along with that as it means one less headache in a process full of them.
There are also natural landing spots for Polk County’s current conference mates in the Mountain Foothills 7. Chase and East Rutherford are also 3A schools and could be paired with Lincolnton, Shelby, West Lincoln and Bessemer City in an all-3A league. R-S Central moves up to 4A and could be paired with a conference ranging from Burns to Catawba County, or perhaps paired with Burns in a 4A/3A conference with the other Rutherford-area schools.
4A Brevard could be bound for a 5A/4A league with some combination of mountain schools, with 3A Patton a good fit for a 4A/3A league based around Wilkes, Caldwell and Burke counties.
There are endless combinations that could be made. A first draft is expected to be released to schools in the next 4-6 weeks.
Anything else to know?
For Polk County fans thinking that 2A might have been a better landing spot, consider this – nearly every dominant charter and private school from the past few seasons will be in 2A. Community School of Davidson, Highland Tech, Mountain Island Charter, Raleigh Charter, Franklin Academy, Bradford Prep, Bishop McGuinness, Christ The King, Cornerstone Charter and Gray Stone Day, among others – all in 2A.
There could be a lot of sports where the 2A playoffs greatly resemble the 1A playoffs of recent years.
What about playoffs?
That’s also something to be determined. There will certainly be eight state titles offered in some sports, but much as indoor track does now with its 1A/2A championships, there are also expected to be varying combinations of classes for postseasons in other sports.
Go back to football. If most of the 58 1A schools do not field a team – and only 18 of those 58 schools fielded an official 11-man varsity team this season – then it wouldn’t be surprising to see a 1A/2A football bracket. Indoor track could be 1A/2A/3A. Sports such as lacrosse might go 8A/7A/6A. And so on.
There are other numerous other questions – how many teams will qualify, will the East/West split still be used, will RPI take on even more importance and so on. Answers to those will probably not fully be sorted until well into 2025, possibly as late as the NCHSAA Board of Directors meeting in May.
Whew.
Indeed. And there have been calls for the NCHSAA to follow the lead of South Carolina and other states and realign every TWO years instead of four.
Imagine that.
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