Paulding High School Teams May Be Affected by New Classification Plan

It is too early to tell the net effect on Paulding high schools as a result of the vote taken by the Georgia High School Association on two reclassification measures during its meeting in Macon on Tuesday. The final results will not be known until after student enrollment counts are submitted by the state Department of Education in October.

A motion to go to a four-classification system, referred to as the 4/8 plan, was defeated by a 35-15 vote. This plan would have resulted in champions for upper and lower Georgia in each classification level.

A new six-classification system, to go into effect with the 2012-2013 school year, was then narrowly approved, by a vote of 26-24.

Lee Segars, principal at Paulding County High School, was one of 50 executive committee members present for the vote. Segars provided information about the voting and rationale used in coming up with the new classification system for high school sports.

Segars voted against the 4/8 plan because he felt that it had too many unanswered questions. "In my mind it was geared more to smaller classifications and was not balanced," he said.

Segars explained that some who voted no to the new plan did so because they favored holding off on taking any action until the next meeting in August. "It was not necessarily that they disagreed with the new classification plan but felt that it was not the time to do it," he added.

Currently Georgia high schools are in classifications ranging from A to AAAAA, with the determining factor being school enrollment.

All Paulding county schools are currently part of Region 5-AAAA, which is divided into two subregions.

The most likely scenario would be for the largest school, South Paulding, to move up one level, and the smallest, Paulding County, to move down one level. However, this could change when all the student counts by school are done in October.

It is unlikely that the other three schools, East Paulding, Hiram, and North Paulding, will be affected by the classification changes.

David Colvard, executive director of Safety and Athletics for the school district, offered his perspective of the new plan.

"If I had a vote, I would have voted to keep everything the same because all five of our teams are in the same classification and same region. The region rules apply to all five teams and it has been good from the standpoint of gate receipts and rivalries," Colvard said.

This past year was the first for all county teams to be in the same classification and region. That will continue at least for one additional year.

According to Colvard, the student numbers as of now would result in the five county teams being in three different classifications and three regions. However, this could change in October.

Colvard plans to submit a letter to GHSA before decisions are made, asking that Paulding teams remain in the same classification and the same region, if possible.

Greg Cherry, athletic director at South Paulding, likes the six-classification plan because it reduces the size of the regions and gives more teams a chance to make the playoffs.

In metro Atlanta, regions have been very large and had to be divided into subregions. The new process will balance the size of the regions and will result in very few subregions in the state.

Generally speaking, most regions will be about the same size when the new system goes into effect. Teams should have enough flexibility in scheduling to play a region slate as well as room to schedule others.

In response to a question about the six-tier system in Alabama and some other states, Segars said that was considered during the discussions. It appears to work well there, according to Segars and Colvard.

Segars pointed out that Georgia has had 54 high schools open since the last classification change was done by GHSA.

Based on enrollment statistics that are available in October, some schools may move up or down in classification. As an example, Chapel Hill in Douglas County had over 2,100 students this year and would have moved up, but enrollment should drop next year due to a new high school opening in the county.

While the GHSA uses the enrollment figures from October, they also try to follow a balanced approach for the six classes. Typically single A is the largest class in the state, with the rest of the classifications about equal in terms of the number of teams.

The number of schools fielding a football team will range from 65-70 in each of the six classifications under this plan. Many of the single A schools are too small to have a football team.

If a school is dissatisfied with a new region alignment, they can request to "play up" to the next level or appeal their assignment.

Although some media outlets published possible region alignments under the new classification, GHSA has cautioned that the data used from the reclassification committee was two years old. The website states, "THIS IS NOT TRUE" in referring to the region alignments published by various media outlets.

While this decision by GHSA will lead to many discussions about "what if" scenarios for 2012, the bottom line is that no decisions will be made about which schools will be in each classification and each region until after student counts are done in October.