The Georgia High School Association released new classifications and region alignments for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, placing Habersham Central High School in Class AAAAA (5A) and within a new region.
The GHSA posted the new classifications, which removed the 7A designation and pushed back into six classes, on November 2.
Thursday, the governing body released preliminary region alignments. While there is time for schools to appeal their placement, it will be few and far between. Still, regions are not concrete at this point.
Remaining in the Region 8 designation, Habersham Central will have seven other schools to contend with for region championships.
Rolling over from the current Region 8-AAAAAA the Raiders play in are Apalachee and Jackson County.
Rounding out the list are Alcovy, Clarke Central, Eastside, Loganville and Winder-Barrow.
When the new classifications were released last week, neither Habersham Central Athletic Director Geep Cunningham nor Head Football Coach Benji Harrison were surprised to be in Class 5A.
“We knew, based on the numbers that we had heard of where the cutoff was going to be between 5A and 6A, we felt that we would be in 5A,” Harrison said. “Really, no surprises.”
With the reclassification list posted by and based on enrollment numbers, Habersham Central was ninth from the top end of Class 5A and right at 100 projected students from the last school in Class 6A.
Cunningham put it plainly: “5A is exactly where we’re supposed to be. That’s where our school fits in.”
The new region is nothing truly new for Habersham Central.
Clarke Central, Winder-Barrow, and Loganville were with Habersham Central in Region 8-AAAA as recently as 2011. Eastside was in Region 8-AAAA in 2005.
Notably missing from the region is Gainesville High School, which is in Class 5A but playing in Region 7 with Chattahoochee, Johns Creek, Lanier, Milton, Roswell and Seckinger.
Gainesville’s football team just completed its second-straight undefeated regular season in Region 8-AAAAAA and starts its trek back to a second-consecutive state title appearance Friday against South Paulding.
“Obviously it’s always interesting to see how things shake out with new region alignment, so we were eager to see the new regions,” Head Baseball Coach Chris Akridge said. “There will be more travel for us with a few of those schools in the region, but it’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
Boys Head Soccer Coach Ric Wallace said he was a bit surprised to see the region makeup with Thursday’s release.
“Quite honestly, it was a little bit shocking to see us go in that direction,” Wallace said. “When they first announced the classifications, I figured we’d be back down 985 and into Gwinnett and over into North Forsyth like we have been for the last decade. It was a welcomed change for me personally and I think it will be for all of us at Habersham.”
Wallace said when the school was placed with the Gwinnett County and Forsyth County schools all those years back, his soccer program started to see a decline in participation. Now that the new region has been announced, he said he hopes it will have the opposite effect and will get more kids back out to play.
“We saw that our numbers started to decline and people didn’t want to participate because they knew we were going to be in dogfights every single region night. For me, hopefully this gets us back to schools that are more like Habersham and will allow us to get people to get back on board and be excited about being part of a program and know you’re not up against it every single night,” Wallace said.
Cunningham is happy to see where his school landed as well.
“I think it’s a great thing,” he said. “I like the makeup of the region. I think we’ll all get along. We’ve got some folks in there we know very well. It looks like a great opportunity to have a lot of fun.”
Harrison said he’s also excited about the new region and he thinks most of the coaches from around the region looked at the new alignment and felt the same.
“I think everybody that looked at that today and looked at that region, looks at it and thinks, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a shot.’ As a coach, that’s all you want – you want a shot.
“I think it makes for a fun region when everybody looks at it and thinks, ‘Hey, I’ve got a shot to be at the top of that thing.’”
