As some may know, the PIAA in Pennsylvania is reclassifying all schools for 2016. They will have 6 classes starting next fall. There is much fighting going on as the PIAA has narrowed down the best way to do this into 3 separate proposals. The one currently out in front can be seen on the PIAA website:
LINK: NEW PIAA CLASSIFICATIONS
The interesting part is that every sport (boys and girls) will be classified separately. So some schools may be Class 3A in football but Class 2A in boys soccer and 4A in girls basketball.
Here are the enrollment breakdowns by class for football. And these are based on males only in grades 9-11:
CLASS 6A - 1770 to 564
CLASS 5A - 563 to 398
CLASS 4A - 397 to 283
CLASS 3A - 282 to 201
CLASS 2A - 200 to 141
CLASS 1A - 140 to 1
The problematic debate is at Class 6A where you have schools with 564 males competing against schools that have 1770 males. That's not good. It just goes to show that PA has way more smaller scale enrollments. Maybe they bought into the fact decades ago that smaller schools were better. I don't know. But this would likely shoot Maryland teams like Linganore and Urbana into the top class where they have to compete with Henry Wise.
Here is where local area schools would fit in PA:
Jefferson (WV) - Class 6A
Martinsburg (WV) - Class 5A
North Hagerstown - Class 5A
South Hagerstown - Class 5A
Williamsport - Class 4A
Mountain Ridge - Class 4A
Boonsboro - Class 4A
Hampshire (WV) - Class 4A
Fort Hill - Class 4A
Smithsburg - Class 4A
Allegany - Class 3A
Southern - Class 3A
Brunswick - Class 3A
Berkeley Springs (WV) - Class 3A
Keyser (WV) - Class 3A
Frankfort (WV) - Class 3A
Northern - Class 2A
Moorefield (WV) - Class 2A
Hancock - Class 1A
Bishop Walsh - Class 1A
LINK: NEW PIAA CLASSIFICATIONS
The interesting part is that every sport (boys and girls) will be classified separately. So some schools may be Class 3A in football but Class 2A in boys soccer and 4A in girls basketball.
Here are the enrollment breakdowns by class for football. And these are based on males only in grades 9-11:
CLASS 6A - 1770 to 564
CLASS 5A - 563 to 398
CLASS 4A - 397 to 283
CLASS 3A - 282 to 201
CLASS 2A - 200 to 141
CLASS 1A - 140 to 1
The problematic debate is at Class 6A where you have schools with 564 males competing against schools that have 1770 males. That's not good. It just goes to show that PA has way more smaller scale enrollments. Maybe they bought into the fact decades ago that smaller schools were better. I don't know. But this would likely shoot Maryland teams like Linganore and Urbana into the top class where they have to compete with Henry Wise.
Here is where local area schools would fit in PA:
Jefferson (WV) - Class 6A
Martinsburg (WV) - Class 5A
North Hagerstown - Class 5A
South Hagerstown - Class 5A
Williamsport - Class 4A
Mountain Ridge - Class 4A
Boonsboro - Class 4A
Hampshire (WV) - Class 4A
Fort Hill - Class 4A
Smithsburg - Class 4A
Allegany - Class 3A
Southern - Class 3A
Brunswick - Class 3A
Berkeley Springs (WV) - Class 3A
Keyser (WV) - Class 3A
Frankfort (WV) - Class 3A
Northern - Class 2A
Moorefield (WV) - Class 2A
Hancock - Class 1A
Bishop Walsh - Class 1A
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