Daggone Tusi... I was posting a question and you were already posting the answer.

Ah, young grasshopper. You must be one with the keyboard...

KHSAA cites the 2 year average enrollment figures for the alignment.

 

My question remains, which two years did they use to establish the alignment for 2009/2010?

 

If someone knows, please provide it.

I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. Still looking.

It appears that the KHSAA used school years 04-05 and 05-06 enrollments to do the 2009 realignment. (They use a two year average of male only enrollment for football alignment) If that is true, then it seems like they could have used more recent figures. At least 05-06 and 06-07 enrollments would have been available. I would like to hear clarification from the KHSAA on exactly what enrollment figures were used for the 2009 realignment before casting stones, though.

This is from a KHSAA press release. It doesn't help much; but it's all I could find:

 

The Board approved the Football Committee’s recommendation to maintain the previously approved alignment for 2007 and 2008 along with some minor modifications on a case by case basis with regard to a great variance in travel and geography and changes in enrollment figures.

 

"The Board chose to move forward by tweaking the current alignment and make minor adjustments rather than starting over and aligning top to bottom or using other variable," KHSAA Assistant Commissioner Julian Tackett said. "With only one year into a new playoff system, there really wasn’t enough data to make major revisions."

Highlands enrollment is 3A and CCH is 4A. They both play up in 5A.

 

Agreed. They moved up because there were not area schools in our respective division. Now, we are going to try to push all of the schools with bigger enrollments than us out of 5A because they have an advantage in terms of student numbers. Then, being only Highlands and CovCath left, we will create a Catholic School 5A Championship and a Non-Catholic School 5A championship.

Agreed. They moved up because there were not area schools in our respective division. Now, we are going to try to push all of the schools with bigger enrollments than us out of 5A because they have an advantage in terms of student numbers. Then, being only Highlands and CovCath left, we will create a Catholic School 5A Championship and a Non-Catholic School 5A championship.

 

Based on the past two year's results against Highlands I say CovCath may choose to go back to 4A after all.:sssh:

Based on the past two year's results against Highlands I say CovCath may choose to go back to 4A after all.:sssh:

 

:lol: I am a 2007 grad, so all I remember is 2006.

Seems to me that the KHSAA has a blanket denial they can issue in every case due to schools with smaller enrollments volunteering to play up. So theoretically you're always going to find a school with the same enrollment as the petitioning school that is still in that class. If a school, such as Highlands, wants to play up and is o.k. with it, that shouldn't penalize schools that want to actually play in the same class as schools with similar enrollments. I think Ashland gets hosed on their district assignment.

My understanding is that when the KHSAA considered the football re-alignment issue last year, they decided to keep the then current alignment the same for two more years. In other words, there really wasn't a re-alignment. I think their logic was that because there had only been one year of the 6 classes under the belt, it made sense to leave it alone for two more years and then re-assess the situation. There were a very few exceptions. Mercer County may have been one of them. Cooper (the new Boone County school) may have been another (they really didn't at the time have a good feel what their actual enrollment was going to be when they opened).

 

There is no doubt that some schools benefitted from the KHSAA's decision not to re-align and some schools (JC and Ashland obviously) were hurt by it and I can understand people being upset with the KHSAA's decision. Until recently, weren't the alignment's made for 4 years? If so, then the KHSAA's decision last year to "let it ride" for two more years in effect really was a return to the way that they used to do it (ie, every 4 years). If I'm mistaken about the KHSAA previously re-aligning every 4 years, someone please let me know (as if I had to ask:D).

 

As others have pointed out, Ky is a pretty tough state to align teams, particularly with football with the few number of schools and the 6 classes (which from what I remember reading was recommended to the KHSAA by the Football Coaches Advisory Committee as was the desire that 4 teams from each district advance. Coach Hart may not have wanted 6 classes or 4 teams from each district to make the playoffs, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading, heck maybe on here, that a large majority of the Football Advisory Committee did). Having 6 classes really spreads schools out. As a result, alignment is a very difficult job.

 

Something else to be considered is that realigning every two years, if that's what is going to be done in the future, also will have it's problems. How do you ever develop any district rivalries if the districts are going to change every two years?

 

I'm not saying that JC and Ashland don't have a bona fide complaint (they do it seems), but solving their problem about alignment is not as easy as people think. If we went back to 4 classes, it would be much easier to do alignment, but that opens up the same can of worms that we dealt with before: big disparity in size between the smallest team in 4A vs the largest and the same with 1A.

 

Its kind of like the state championship site location issue: its not an easy thing to deal with because while some people benefit from the move to WKU, others are hurt travel wise. I will say that based on my intel, I don't think politics or the desire to retaliate against Ashland or JC because they supported the public private split entered the re-alignment (or more accurately, failure to re-align) issue. Other schools that supported the split benefitted from the KHSAA's decision to postpone re-alignment and some schools that opposed the split were hurt by the decision not to re-align, which would indicate to me thinking logically, that the KHSAA didn't factor the public private split support issue at all in its decision not to re-align. But Coach Hart may be closer to the situation than I am or know something that I do not.

Seems to me that the KHSAA has a blanket denial they can issue in every case due to schools with smaller enrollments volunteering to play up. So theoretically you're always going to find a school with the same enrollment as the petitioning school that is still in that class. If a school, such as Highlands, wants to play up and is o.k. with it, that shouldn't penalize schools that want to actually play in the same class as schools with similar enrollments. I think Ashland gets hosed on their district assignment.

 

 

If you are referring to the blanket denials posted by Watusi, those were requests to move down, not up.

Seems to me that the KHSAA has a blanket denial they can issue in every case due to schools with smaller enrollments volunteering to play up. So theoretically you're always going to find a school with the same enrollment as the petitioning school that is still in that class. If a school, such as Highlands, wants to play up and is o.k. with it, that shouldn't penalize schools that want to actually play in the same class as schools with similar enrollments. I think Ashland gets hosed on their district assignment.

 

I would agree that IF the KHSAA is saying "Ashland/JC your request to be 4A is denied because (among other things) you are the same size as some others in 5A" and that comparison is to a 3A or 4A-sized school that has been granted permission to play up in 5A.

 

I, however, didn't even consider that until your post. I read the KHSAA response as comparing them to others in 5A that were there naturally. I thought they were basically saying, "No, you can't go down to 4A, there are others your size toward the bottom of 5A and there always will be teams on the low and high fringes of each classification."

 

Anyone know which is right? Are there others (even just 2 or 3) with similar enrollment #s from whatever year they are using?

 

P.S. If you're saying they should look at the #s more often, I think LN's post speaks to that. Nothing will be perfect.

My understanding is that when the KHSAA considered the football re-alignment issue last year, they decided to keep the then current alignment the same for two more years. In other words, there really wasn't a re-alignment. I think their logic was that because there had only been one year of the 6 classes under the belt, it made sense to leave it alone for two more years and then re-assess the situation. There were a very few exceptions. Mercer County may have been one of them. Cooper (the new Boone County school) may have been another (they really didn't at the time have a good feel what their actual enrollment was going to be when they opened).

 

There is no doubt that some schools benefitted from the KHSAA's decision not to re-align and some schools (JC and Ashland obviously) were hurt by it and I can understand people being upset with the KHSAA's decision. Until recently, weren't the alignment's made for 4 years? If so, then the KHSAA's decision last year to "let it ride" for two more years in effect really was a return to the way that they used to do it (ie, every 4 years). If I'm mistaken about the KHSAA previously re-aligning every 4 years, someone please let me know (as if I had to ask:D).

Thanks LN. That answers my questions. There wasn't a realignment at all this year. If that is the case, then these two schools don't really have a valid gripe that I can see.

 

As long as everyone is treated the same, (and keeping the current alignment certainly does that with the exception of the few schools petitioning to move in the link I provided) then I think the decision is fine.

 

Like LN said, a few may benefit and a few may suffer, but only those whose enrollments greatly fluctuate and they will be reevaluated after this 2 year period.

 

Petitioning to play up is one thing, but wanting to drop down a class should come with some serious scrutiny and IMO it should only be done in extreme cases outside of a realignment year.

If you are referring to the blanket denials posted by Watusi, those were requests to move down, not up.

No I was saying due to schools playing up there will always be schools with the same enrollment or smaller than schools requesting to move down. In other words no one could be granted a request to move down due to teams that play up. Clear as mud right? :laugh:

No I was saying due to schools playing up there will always be schools with the same enrollment or smaller than schools requesting to move down. In other words no one could be granted a request to move down due to teams that play up. Clear as mud right? :laugh:

 

 

You are right (about the clear as mud thing:D).

 

Requests to move down from what I understand are never approved. I'm told that the KHSAA's policy is not to grant requests to move down. Ever. Move up requests, yes when a school is geographically isolated. Move down, no even when a school is geographically isolated (I guess that if re-alignment was only going to happen every 4 years and in the first year of a re-alignment, a school somehow lost 50% of its boys, the KHSAA would consider a request to move down) . JC and Ashland's requests were a little out of the ordinary however because they were saying that if the KHSAA had re-aligned, those two schools would have been 4A, and since the KHSAA elected not to re-align, they should be permitted to move down. The problem with that request is that there would have been other schools in the same boat in several classes. If the KHSAA permitted JC and Ashland to "move down" to the class they would have been if there had been re-alignment, they almost would have had to do it for all the other similarly situated schools. If that happened, it would have almost forced a total re-alignment, which obviously the KHSAA didn't want to do or they would have done it. But the denial of a request to move down had nothing to do with some schools getting to move up. Heck, my post is as muddy as yours. :thumb:

It really doesn't sound all that complicated. Move-down requests are never approved. Move-up requests are sometimes approved.

 

Additionally, lateral transfers, for lack of a better term, are sometimes approved as well. I specifically recall Fleming County a couple of years ago asking the KHSAA to approve a move to the district that incuded (at the time) Cawood, Estill, Breathitt and Powell. I'm not sure what Fleming's rationale was, as there was much more travel involved. The move was approved; Fleming returns to the Russell, Mason, West Carter and Lewis County district next year.