THOMASTON, Ga. — The Georgia High School Association's reclassification committee is in deep discussion to alter the landscape of high school athletics.
Reclassification of the state's over 400 public and private schools is officially underway as the GHSA awaits the FTE counts to roll in next month.
But for now, the private school debate is at the forefront of the discussion. The committee met on Tuesday to discuss new ways to level the playing field.
Based on the numbers, private schools continued to dominate under the latest reclassification, which is in Year 2. According to the committee, private schools won more state titles last school year than the previous school year.
Curt Miller, who led the charge to increase the multiplier on schools with "out-of-district" students attending a school to 3.0, says it's time to start discussing two separate playoff systems.
"The multiplier has zero impact on the success rate of private schools," said Miller. "It is time to have a serious conversation about having different playoffs for private and public schools. I want them to be together during the regular season in regions to help with travel and scheduling, but then split the playoffs."
The competitive balance model was also brought up again. Most of the committee did not like the plan.
"One of the problems I had with competitive balance when it was brought up two years ago," said Steven Craft, "is that you could have a school with a dominant boys basketball team but a mediocre girls team, and the girls team would be brought up to a higher classification because of the boys success. I think that would be an immediate Title IV problem."
Executive director Robin Hines says it would be challenging to implement the formula.
"Competitive balance is easier to talk about than it is to do," Hide said. "But we will implement whatever you tell us to."
Don Norton introduced proposal 15-2: "Class A D2 shall consist of the smallest (approximately 50) football-playing public schools. Maximum enrollment, including multiplier, for Class A D2, will fall within the natural cutoff of approximately 450-475 students. Non-football-playing public schools that classify as Class A D2 will be placed in Class A D2 regions."
The proposal was approved.
Jeff Battles also introduced a plan to split the playoffs in Classes A-Divison 1 through Class 3A.
According to the meeting minutes, the plan would take the "private schools in those three classes combining into a single championship bracket while the public schools would play for championships in A-Div. 1, A-Div. 2, 2A and 3A. The regular season would be contested in regions of both public and private schools as normal."
The committee tabled the proposal.
The committee also discussed and agreed that students who attend a career academy and are eligible to play for their home school would be counted toward the home school's enrollment numbers.
