The Georgia High School Association’s executive committee will vote April 11 on a proposal to return to six classifications in 2024-25.
The GHSA’s board of trustees voted 12-0 earlier this month to recommend the plan, which is designed to reduce team travel to games and competitions. The plan effectively would reduce the number of classes by one and the number of regions by eight (to 56 from 64) to revert to a similar structure that existed before 2020.
There currently are classes from 1A to 7A with 1A having public and private divisions, each with eight regions, making for what effectively is eight classifications. By that definition, the new plan would bring about seven classes, although the GHSA counts Class A as one class.
The GHSA ratified reclassification for 2022-23 and 2023-24 in January and abolished the public/private split in Class A but replaced it with Division 1 for larger Class A schools and Division 2 for smaller Class A schools. With the reclass finished, the earliest the GHSA can revert to fewer classifications is 2024.
Fewer classes means more teams in each region, and that typically results in region rivals being closer together. That addresses travel issues that state lawmakers have pushed the GHSA to address.
Two related proposals on the April 11 agenda, announced Wednesday, would change the GHSA’s out-of-zone enrollment modifier to exempt students who enter a feeder school before the sixth grade and to allow private and charter schools to pick their attendance zone as it relates to defining out-of-zone students.
In assigning a school’s classification, the GHSA applies a 3.0 multiplier to students living outside a school’s attendance zone as a way of mitigating perceived unfair competitive advantages for schools that get high numbers of out-of-zone students.
Other agenda proposals would allow a five-day spring tryout for flag football, add a third state championship for lacrosse and extend player and coach suspensions to sports beyond the one in which the suspension occurred.
The wrestling committee is proposing to increase the number of play dates in girls wrestling to 20 from six beginning in 2022-23 and to increase the number of weight classes to 14 from 10. The GHSA is moving toward having girls wrestling becoming a full championship sport and a dual-gender sport, meaning girls-only and boys-only teams, beginning in 2023-24. Currently, girls can compete on boys teams.
The April 11 meeting will be at the Macon City Center.
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