3afan
01-17-2006, 07:12 AM
UIL realignment is hard to figure
Highland Park among bubble schools before Feb. 2 announcement
09:02 PM CST on Monday, January 16, 2006
By MATT JACOB / The Dallas Morning News
The question is asked of Randy Allen at about this time every two years. As his Highland Park football team continues its long run as one of the state's Class 4A powers, opponents would like nothing more than to see it elevate to Class 5A.
For now, Allen can only speculate about his team's standing. Ask him again on Feb. 2, when the University Interscholastic League releases the results of its biennial realignment, and Allen will have a more definite answer.
"I feel confident and optimistic that we'll stay in 4A. But all that could change the day of alignment," Allen said. "It's just a wait-and-see game until then. There are a lot of unknowns, and we really can't predict anything."
Try as they might, coaches and other prognosticators who think they've mastered all the ins and outs of realignment can never be 100 percent accurate. Only the UIL, which shuffles its more than 1,200 member schools every two years, can make that claim.
The UIL ranks schools based on a snapshot of a school's average daily attendance on a specific date in odd-numbered years – in this case Oct. 28, 2005.
UIL executive director Charles Breithaupt said 245 schools are then selected for 5A membership, to be divided into 32 districts spread across four regions. The same process is repeated for 4A down through Class A. Whereas a school can petition to play in a class higher than its attendance dictates, it cannot play down a level.
"The process gets more complex each year," Breithaupt said.
The cutoff for 5A in 2004 was 1,925 students. Highland Park's figure was 1,921 – a number that would have made it a 5A school two years before. That cutoff increases steadily each year and was 8.1 percent higher in 2004 than it was in 1998, when the limit was set at 1,780.
It appears likely that five area 4A schools will make the jump to 5A, including defending 4A Division II football champion Hebron. The others are Keller Central, Wylie, Justin Northwest and Mansfield Timberview. Meanwhile, three area schools probably will fall from 5A to 4A: Denton Ryan, Keller Fossil Ridge and Samuell. The Colony, with an enrollment of 1,976, also could fall into that group.
Richardson Pearce, which turned in an attendance figure of 1,980, is among a handful of schools that could go either 5A or 4A depending on where the cutoff falls.
"I think we're on the bubble, but we're not concerned about it because we don't have any control over it," Pearce football coach Bobby Reyes said. "We're going to play wherever we are. We're either going to be one of the last teams in 5A or one of the biggest in 4A."
One potential area of conflict was how to count students who moved into high schools as hurricane evacuees. The UIL determined that, if those students still were in Texas schools on Oct. 28, their attendance would count only as half in a school's enrollment figure for that day.
Also new next season: In 5A, four teams will advance to the playoffs in team sports. Breithaupt said the UIL strives to keep a district's membership to as close to eight teams as possible, but it could be necessary to have districts of nine or 10 schools to minimize travel.
"We look to it with a great deal of anticipation because of the potential for change," said Mansfield ISD superintendent Vernon Newsom, chairman of the UIL's 28-member Legislative Council that sets realignment parameters. "That also always brings a little bit of anxiety to us, but we certainly don't expect many problems."
E-mail mjacob@dallasnews.com
MOVING UP?
School Current class Enrollment
Keller Central 4A 2,370
Wylie 4A 2,246.5
Justin Northwest 4A 2,219
Hebron 4A 2,166
Mansfield Timberview 4A 2,072
Highland Park 4A 1,957.5
Little Elm 3A 1,010
Celina 2A 429
Prosper 2A 514
MOVING DOWN?
School Current class Enrollment
Richardson Pearce 5A 1,980
The Colony 5A 1,976
Keller Fossil Ridge 5A 1,921.5
Denton Ryan 5A 1,866
Samuell 5A 1,808
NEW SCHOOLS
School Enrollment Projected class
McKinney Boyd 1,430 4A
Frisco Wakeland 651 3A
Frisco Liberty 603* –
Dallas Conrad 500* –
*School will not play varsity athletics in 2006-07
THE CUTOFF
Class 2002-04 2004-06
5A 1,910-up 1,925-up
4A 900-1,909 900-1,924
3A 345-899 389-899
2A 180-344 190-389
A 179-down 189-down
Highland Park among bubble schools before Feb. 2 announcement
09:02 PM CST on Monday, January 16, 2006
By MATT JACOB / The Dallas Morning News
The question is asked of Randy Allen at about this time every two years. As his Highland Park football team continues its long run as one of the state's Class 4A powers, opponents would like nothing more than to see it elevate to Class 5A.
For now, Allen can only speculate about his team's standing. Ask him again on Feb. 2, when the University Interscholastic League releases the results of its biennial realignment, and Allen will have a more definite answer.
"I feel confident and optimistic that we'll stay in 4A. But all that could change the day of alignment," Allen said. "It's just a wait-and-see game until then. There are a lot of unknowns, and we really can't predict anything."
Try as they might, coaches and other prognosticators who think they've mastered all the ins and outs of realignment can never be 100 percent accurate. Only the UIL, which shuffles its more than 1,200 member schools every two years, can make that claim.
The UIL ranks schools based on a snapshot of a school's average daily attendance on a specific date in odd-numbered years – in this case Oct. 28, 2005.
UIL executive director Charles Breithaupt said 245 schools are then selected for 5A membership, to be divided into 32 districts spread across four regions. The same process is repeated for 4A down through Class A. Whereas a school can petition to play in a class higher than its attendance dictates, it cannot play down a level.
"The process gets more complex each year," Breithaupt said.
The cutoff for 5A in 2004 was 1,925 students. Highland Park's figure was 1,921 – a number that would have made it a 5A school two years before. That cutoff increases steadily each year and was 8.1 percent higher in 2004 than it was in 1998, when the limit was set at 1,780.
It appears likely that five area 4A schools will make the jump to 5A, including defending 4A Division II football champion Hebron. The others are Keller Central, Wylie, Justin Northwest and Mansfield Timberview. Meanwhile, three area schools probably will fall from 5A to 4A: Denton Ryan, Keller Fossil Ridge and Samuell. The Colony, with an enrollment of 1,976, also could fall into that group.
Richardson Pearce, which turned in an attendance figure of 1,980, is among a handful of schools that could go either 5A or 4A depending on where the cutoff falls.
"I think we're on the bubble, but we're not concerned about it because we don't have any control over it," Pearce football coach Bobby Reyes said. "We're going to play wherever we are. We're either going to be one of the last teams in 5A or one of the biggest in 4A."
One potential area of conflict was how to count students who moved into high schools as hurricane evacuees. The UIL determined that, if those students still were in Texas schools on Oct. 28, their attendance would count only as half in a school's enrollment figure for that day.
Also new next season: In 5A, four teams will advance to the playoffs in team sports. Breithaupt said the UIL strives to keep a district's membership to as close to eight teams as possible, but it could be necessary to have districts of nine or 10 schools to minimize travel.
"We look to it with a great deal of anticipation because of the potential for change," said Mansfield ISD superintendent Vernon Newsom, chairman of the UIL's 28-member Legislative Council that sets realignment parameters. "That also always brings a little bit of anxiety to us, but we certainly don't expect many problems."
E-mail mjacob@dallasnews.com
MOVING UP?
School Current class Enrollment
Keller Central 4A 2,370
Wylie 4A 2,246.5
Justin Northwest 4A 2,219
Hebron 4A 2,166
Mansfield Timberview 4A 2,072
Highland Park 4A 1,957.5
Little Elm 3A 1,010
Celina 2A 429
Prosper 2A 514
MOVING DOWN?
School Current class Enrollment
Richardson Pearce 5A 1,980
The Colony 5A 1,976
Keller Fossil Ridge 5A 1,921.5
Denton Ryan 5A 1,866
Samuell 5A 1,808
NEW SCHOOLS
School Enrollment Projected class
McKinney Boyd 1,430 4A
Frisco Wakeland 651 3A
Frisco Liberty 603* –
Dallas Conrad 500* –
*School will not play varsity athletics in 2006-07
THE CUTOFF
Class 2002-04 2004-06
5A 1,910-up 1,925-up
4A 900-1,909 900-1,924
3A 345-899 389-899
2A 180-344 190-389
A 179-down 189-down