Georgia HSA Moves Ahead With 6-Class Restructuring

MACON — The Georgia High School Association consolidated its move toward six classifications for the 2012-13 school year on Monday.

Meeting in Macon, the GHSA’s Executive Committee turned the once-contentious plan into unanimous approval by allowing the GHSA’s Reclassification Committee some leeway in how the group will build and structure regions — a process that will begin in October when enrollment numbers (FTE counts) are released by the state Board of Education.

“I think we’re united again across the state,” Lumpkin County Schools Human Resources Director and Executive Committee member Tracy Sanford said. “It was a great gesture from the Executive Committee, and now the Reclassification Committee has some flexibility.”

Buford athletic director and Executive Committee member Dexter Wood agreed.

“I feel a lot better about the direction the GHSA is headed in now,” Wood said. “A lot of concerns have been hashed out by the Reclassification Committee, and I think, with some modifications, the six class plan is the best method of restructuring how we do things.”

Currently comprising five classes amongst its 433 member schools, the GHSA has been searching for some time for the best compromise to travel and competition concerns voiced by a number of its schools. By allowing the GHSA’s Reclassification Committee to adjust regions (by classification) between one-two percent, the governing body feels it has found the best method.

“We as the Executive Committee did what was right: put it back in the hands of the Reclassification Committee so they can do their job,” North Forsyth athletic director Nathan Turner said. “That flexibility will allow the committee to balance a lot of regions.”

The unity expressed Monday was a marked contrast from the last time the GHSA met to discuss reclassification, with the six-class plan — forwarded by Dave Hunter — receiving a narrow 26-24 vote to proceed after another proposal, dubbed the 4/8 plan, failed during a tense session held May 10 in Macon. Even the vote itself came under scrutiny when Charlton County athletic director Jesse Crews lodged an appeal against the manner in which it was conducted, saying that it had not followed proper procedure.

Yet after further discussion by the Reclassification Committee, which opted unanimously to move forward with six classes, the GHSA’s Executive Committee relaxed some of its concerns with the proposal.

“The appeal was immediately dropped today, and the way it has been discussed addressed some of the concerns people had with it,” Turner said.

Any school looking for exactly where it will be playing in the future may have a long wait, however, as the Reclassification Committee must first receive the FTE numbers for its members schools in grades 9-11 in October — a process likely to be followed by appeals — before structuring classes and regions.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Wood said. “Even after the numbers come out you’ll probably have a lot of schools appealing to play up or down in classifications. I think you’ll see a lot of movement, and there’s no way of knowing right now just where people are going to end up. It may be January or later before the Reclassification Committee can bring the new regions to the Executive Committee for approval.”

All involved stress that any region alignments released in previous months were simply proposals and not based on any structures that will come into being.

“It’s tough because people see some of the proposals — based on old FTE numbers that are out of date — and get a false sense of where they may be,” Turner said. “Some people might have gotten upset over what they saw, but that wasn’t necessarily what’s going to happen. The reality is right now we’re just in a holding pattern.”

“There is no set date to unveil the new regions,” Sanford added.

Yet change is coming to the GHSA, as this will be the first change to the classification system since the organization adopted five classes for the start of the 2000-01 school year.

“I think it’s a great thing,” Wood said. “We needed change, and I think this will be best for the GHSA.”

— NOTES: The Reclassification Committee will meet again in two weeks to continue its discussions on moving forward, included will be a subcommittee look at how Class A will be structured. … Also enacted on Monday, tie-breaker procedures for football, lacrosse and soccer were altered to remove all-classifications percentages. Now teams will not be penalized for playing opponents in lower classifications when weighing up tie-breakers.