The Manchester Enterprise
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
School classifications announced for 2008-09
PUBLISHED: April 3, 2008
Classifications for Michigan High School Athletic Association elections and postseason tournaments in traditionally classified sports (A, B, C, D) for the next school year have been announced.
Advertisement
Effective with the 2008-09 school year, schools with 1,017 or more students will be Class A in MHSAA competition. The enrollment limits for Class B are 498 to 1,016 students. Class C's limit is 234 to 497 students, while schools with 233 students or less are Class D.
The breaks decreased by 38 students between Classes A and B, nine students between Classes B and C and 15 students between Classes C and D.
Classifications for the 2008-09 school year are based on a second semester count date, which was Feb. 27 for MHSAA purposes.
The enrollment figure submitted for athletic classification purposes may be different from the count submitted for school aid purposes, as it doesn't include students ineligible for athletic competition because they reached their 19th birthday prior to Sept. 1 of the current school year. The MHSAA enrollment figure also doesn't include alternative education students if none are allowed athletic eligibility by the local school district.
After all the counts were submitted, the 766 tournament-qualified member schools were ranked according to enrollment, then split as closely into quarters as possible. For the 2008-09 school year, there are 190 schools in Class A and 192 schools each in Class B, C and D.
With an enrollment of 422 students, Manchester High School will remain in Class C.
The new classification breaks will see 23 schools move up in class for next year, while 17 schools will move down. Schools were recently notified of their classifications.
According to MHSAA Executive Director John Roberts, schools may not subsequently lower their enrollment figure. However, if revised enrollment figures should be higher and indicate that a school should be playing in a higher class, that school will be moved up.
Schools have the option to play at any higher classification for a minimum of two years, but must exercise the option by April 15 for fall sports, Aug. 15 for winter sports and Oct. 15 for spring sports.
MHSAA tournament sports conducted in traditional classifications for 2008-09 are basketball and volleyball. Football will use traditional classifications to determine playoff points. Sports competing in nearly equal divisions next year are baseball, bowling, competitive cheerleading, cross country, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, skiing, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field and wrestling.
Soccer will have 20 percent of sponsoring schools in Division 4 and the remaining schools divided equally into Divisions 1, 2 and 3. To review the divisional alignments, visit the respective sports pages on the MHSAA Web site.
The eight divisions of the MHSAA football playoffs will be announced on Selection Sunday, taking place Oct. 26. A complete list of school enrollments used to determine classifications for the 2008-09 school year can be found on the administrators page of the MHSAA Web site.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
TOP JOBS
