Private schools unite to make case against GHSA’s private-only playoff format

Georgia’s smaller private schools are prepared to seek judicial and legislative solutions if the Georgia High School Association does not reconsider the private-only playoff format in place since 2024, according to a recent letter from their attorney to the GHSA.

Brent Bell, the head of school for Darlington, one of the 20 schools represented in the letter, addressed the GHSA’s executive committee this week, striking a patient, cooperative tone, for now.

“I don’t see the private schools suing the GHSA,” Bell told the AJC. “That’s not our goal. What we’re trying to do is figure out how we can be heard in the current governance structure of the GHSA. We’re trying to organize ourselves a little better to make sure that we have a clearer picture of expectations as we go into a reclass cycle.”

In the current two-year cycle, 36 of the GHSA’s 44 private schools are competing in private-only state tournaments and meets. The other eight compete with public schools for championships in classes 4A and 5A.

Enrollment numbers for the smaller private schools range from 60 at W.D. Mohammad to 626 at Greater Atlanta Christian. The smallest football-playing private school is Mount Bethel Christian with 182 students. For the next two classifications, the gap will widen, as Westminster, with 819 students, will join the private group.

“What we’re concerned about is student safety and creating imbalance unnecessarily without thoughtful conversation,” Bell said. “The reclass committee and the executive committee have taken an approach that all private schools are the same, and we just want to make sure they hear early on that we’re not all the same. A lot of (private) schools feel like they can’t compete with schools with 300 or 400 more students than them.’’

Private schools would prefer to compete against public schools for state championships. Some smaller private schools have been confined to private-only championships for most years since 2012, originally for only Class A schools, now for those as high as 3A.

Most smaller public schools want private schools separated for state competition, believing they have unfair competitive advantages, namely their ability to draw students from anywhere. Private schools are not constrained by school district boundaries.

With the Class 3A-A private playoff division in place in 2024-25, private schools won 30 of the GHSA’s 183 team championships. Without a 3A-A private playoff division in 2023-24, they won 58 state titles, nearly twice as many.

Private schools are outnumbered 413 to 44 in the GHSA. The letter, from attorney Gregg Clifton, pointed to the “decisive majority” that public schools hold in decision-making. Larger public schools, mostly unaffected by private schools, can be indifferent to the private schools’ concerns, but their votes count, which is partly why Bell sought an audience of the full executive committee Monday.

The attorney’s letter documented the history of GHSA’s efforts to level the playing field amid private-school sports domination. It began in 2000 when the GHSA applied an enrollment multiplier only to private schools, forcing them up in classification. Currently, the GHSA applies a 3.0 multiplier to out-of-zone students for all schools, but it affects private schools much more significantly.

“These actions forced smaller private schools to be reclassified into classifications to compete against schools that are multiple times their size, creating clear and measurable inequities,” the letter states. “The decision to merge all Class A-AAA private schools into a single postseason bracket further compounds this disparity by limiting championships access exclusively for private institutions, while public schools continue to compete for separate championships across multiple classifications.”