Private schools St. Pius and Woodward Academy and city-school sports juggernauts Buford and Carrollton are coming to Class 7A, and Blessed Trinity barely was saved the same fate but will join Marist a class higher in 6A.
The Georgia High School Association placed its 478 member schools into 2022-23 classifications Tuesday, and the tentative lineup has those four private schools, plus Benedictine (5A), Greater Atlanta Christian (5A), Lovett (4A) and Westminster (4A), in higher classifications.
If that holds, St. Pius and Woodward Academy will become the first metro Atlanta private schools to compete in the GHSA’s highest classification since the 1960s.
Buford, a Class A school as recently as 2001, also is making history. The Wolves have won football state titles in 12 of the past 20 seasons but soon will be competing with the likes of fellow Gwinnett County schools Grayson, Brookwood and Collins Hill.
The outcome is the result of an out-of-zone enrollment multiplier approved last month that was designed to curb private-school domination. The nine private schools in classes 5A to 2A won 42 of 87 available state titles during the 2020-21 academic year. There are 223 public schools in those classifications.
The new multiplier also is aimed at city schools such as Buford and Carrollton that typically have a higher percentage of out-of-zone students than county schools. The GHSA membership believed this was an unfair competitive advantage, evidenced by those schools’ disproportionate success.
Other city schools moving up are Valdosta (7A), Jefferson (5A) and Thomasville (3A). Calhoun caught a break and will remain in 5A. Blessed Trinity also was lucky, placed as the largest qualifier for 6A rather than the smallest in 7A.
Also interesting is that Class 7A football powers Milton and Roswell are slated to move down into 6A. So are Newnan, Hillgrove and Tift County.
The GHSA will hear appeals to classification placement Nov. 10.
“We will use logic,” GHSA president Glenn White, also a reclassification committee member, told GHSF Daily last month. “If you come to the committee and say, ‘Look, we might’ve made the playoffs in a sport or two, but we aren’t getting by the first round,’ that’s where we might say yes. But if you won nine state championships last year and don’t want to move up, no, I’m not going to buy that one.”
After appeals, the GHSA will place schools into regions.
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