GHSA reclass insights: Multiplier winners, losers; football powers on the move

The Georgia High School Association placed schools into classifications for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 academic years this week. Schools may appeal their placement or petition to play higher or low in class by noon Sunday. Appeals will be heard beginning Monday at 10 a.m.

Here are four takeaways from Monday’s tentative new classifications.

Big boys are moving up

Two No. 1-ranked football teams — Creekside in Class 4A and Worth County in Class A Division I — were placed in higher classifications starting in 2026. Other current top-10 football teams that are in line to move up are Kell to Class 6A, Jefferson and LaGrange to 5A, Carver-Atlanta to 4A, Lamar County, Northeast and Savannah Christian to 3A and Brooks County and Screven County to 2A.

The only significant top-10 football programs that might move down are Benedictine and Marist, into the 4A-2A Private group, if they choose that option.

Private schools have to make decisions

Several private schools currently in Class 4A will have the option of joining the Class 3A-A Private division (or what will be known as 4A-2A Private beginning in 2026-27). They are Benedictine, Eagle’s Landing Christian, Marist, Pace Academy and Westminster.

Most chose to play up in the current cycle, and perhaps they will again. Marist and Westminster are the state’s most dominant sports programs, so their decisions will have a huge impact on who wins championships in the next cycle.

Out-of-zone multipliers create winners and losers

The GHSA employs a 3.0 multiplier on out-of-zone students because of perceived competitive advantages for schools with open enrollment or no district boundaries.

The schools most associated with this competitive advantage are private and city schools, which perform far beyond their county public counterparts in sports on average. Ironically, three city schools — Gainesville, Dalton and Calhoun — will be competing one class lower than their raw enrollment would place them, and it’s because of the multiplier, the opposite of expectations.

If based on enrollment alone, Gainesville would be in Class 7A, Dalton in 6A and Calhoun in 5A starting in 2026-27. However, their out-of-zone percentages are lower than the GHSA’s average of 5.8% — Gainesville at 1.4%, Dalton at 1.9% and Calhoun at 3.5%. Apparently, some city schools have far fewer out-of-zone students than most think, or they have large numbers of out-of-zone students who joined the school system before middle school, making them exempt.

On the flip side, schools that will compete in higher classes because of the multiplier include Buford, Carrollton, Douglas County, Kell and many private schools. Their raw enrollment would put them in lower classes, but they have out-of-zone enrollments of 10% or greater. Those schools can fend for themselves, especially in football, but some schools will be playing higher than their raw enrollment for no practical reason.

Call it collateral multiplier damage.

They include Paulding County, Kennesaw Mountain, Arabia Mountain and Lakeside of Evans, innocuous county schools whose enrollments say 6A but whose out-of-zone numbers push them into 7A.

Another example is New Hampstead, which has 1,037 students, fewer than Burke County and Stephens County (both with 1,102), but the presence of 42 out-of-zone students serves to make New Hampstead a 4A school, ahead of Burke and Stephens in 3A.

Competitive balance is becoming important

This summer, the GHSA reclassification committee asked the GHSA to create a formula to identify, in an objective way, schools that struggle in sports and would be good candidates to play down. The GHSA has not released that criteria, but Gainesville athletic director Adam Lindsey — a major proponent of competitive-balance reclassification — has identified through his research the three schools in each class that are making the fewest playoff appearances and advancements. Those schools are Berkmar, Meadowcreek and South Cobb in Class 6A, Alcovy, Banneker and Apalachee in 5A, Drew, Lithonia and Cross Keys in 4A, Beach, Groves and Windsor Forest in 3A, Coretta Scott King, Kendrick and Glenn Hills in 2A and Ben Franklin Academy, Utopian Academy and McNair in A Division I.

It will be interesting to see if more of these chronic strugglers petition to play down now that the GHSA is signaling that it will be kinder to these overtures.

Below are the schools pegged to move up or down from their current classification.

The GHSA will be changing the names of the classes starting in 2026-27. Instead of Class 6A to classes A Division I and Division II, the classes will be 7A to A.