BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
In a special meeting called Tuesday morning by the IHSAA, the state’s governing body for high school sports announced the passing of the new classification proposal that was previously voted down.
At their annual meeting in August, the IHSAA board voted in an 8-6 vote to reject the proposed reclassification, one that would see 5A becoming 6A, 4A becoming 5A, 3A becoming 4A, 2A becoming 3A, 1A Division I becoming 2A and 1A Division II becoming 1A.
Essentially, 6A has been created and the enrollment cutoffs for all other classes have changed. This new classification will begin for the start of the 2024-25 school year.
“We don’t have any new classifications, we have new classification numbers,” IHSAA Executive Director Ty Jones said.
Since the vote was regarding rules and regulations and not a bylaw change, Jones said they only required a 50 percent plus 1 vote in favor of the rule to pass it. For a bylaw change, the IHSAA requires a two-thirds majority vote. The meeting was called after many schools, superintendents and other people associated with high school sports were not pleased with the outcome of the August vote and urged the IHSAA to hold another vote to have their say on the matter.
The proposal passed with 100 of a possible 152 votes from the schools that voted. There are 168 schools in the IHSAA.
“After the August board meeting, there were some people that did not like the outcome,” Jones said. “In our bylaws there is a provision that gives them two ways to potentially override what the board says. One of them is at our annual meeting, which happens in the summer. The other is a special meeting, which is what this one was. Schools made a request because, of the number of schools that had talked about it, our board president said we should have a special meeting.”
In District III, which covers the Treasure Valley, Middleton will be moving down a class, but because of the new 6A class, they will remain under the 5A classification. They’ll join the likes of Bishop Kelly, Columbia, Emmett, Skyview and Vallivue in the new 6A District III.
Schools moving up to 6A in District III include Caldwell and Ridgevue. Canyon Ridge from District IV will also move to 6A.
Cole Valley Christian will move up to 4A from 2A. Parma remains in 3A, but the enrollment for 3A changes from 639-320 to 349-175.
There are tweaks to the enrollment cutoff in each class, but the most drastic change is at the top, where the enrollment cutoff between 6A and 5A is at 1,400. Previously, in the latest cycle, the cutoff between 5A at the top and 4A was 1,281.
Schools are allowed to petition up a class, but petitions for going down a class are only permitted for team sports. Individual sports such as cross country, golf, swimming etc. will remain in their respective classes.
Jones said that schools have until Sept. 10 to submit any petitions for their classifications and will have a better idea by the end of the month just how many schools will be affected by this change.
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
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