KSHSAA proposal seeks to reframe size of classes

Change may be coming to the classification system currently used by the Kansas State High School Activities Association.

After a year of dialogue and examining more than 45 models, a 13-person committee made two proposals Wednesday at the KSHSAA’s Board of Directors meeting in Topeka.

The proposals focus on addressing the enrollment disparity, specifically in Class 4A, where schools such as Haven (enrollment 267) compete in the postseason with schools nearly three times larger.

In football, the two 4A divisions and 2-1A would be eliminated, replaced with 32-team classifications in 6A, 5A, and 4A and 48-team classifications in 3A and 2A with the remaining schools playing in 1A — eliminating the 3-games-in-10-days issue in the 3A playoffs. In other sports, 6A, 5A, and 4A would form 36-team classes, while 3A and 2A would consist of 64 with the rest in 1A.

“This is different and change is hard sometimes,” said Bill Faflick, assistant superintendent of the Wichita public schools and part of the committee. “The challenge is going to be having more schools in 6A, 5A, and 1A, but I feel like it benefits the larger group and it makes sense for everyone in Kansas. The best part about this is everybody is part of the solution. All of the schools will be impacted. They’ll have to give a little, but they’re all going to benefit a little from this as well.”

The proposals, which would take effect in 2018-19, will be presented at regional meetings in October. The committee will finalize the proposals to be voted on in April by the KSHSAA board of directors, which is made up of mostly principals and athletic directors from all classifications.

Faflick expects the most resistance from 6A and 5A schools, which would be competing against four more schools in their class.

But Faflick hopes schools can accept what he feels like is a minor drawback — essentially competing against one or two more teams at a regional tournament — to eliminate postseason matchups of schools with a 500-student enrollment disparity.

“It may be a little harder to win a championship in 6A or 5A now, but it was always hard to begin with and now you’re allowing that ratio compression to occur and that’s good for everyone across the state,” Faflick said. “It’s better than adding another class and having another championship.”

Faflick is sure that 36 schools in highest classifications will give some pause after years of having 32, a number divisible by eight.

But the numbers the committee reviewed told them 36 was the right choice.

“We literally went through every single activity and outlined what it would like if we had 36 teams in the postseason and what this would look like with 32 or 64 teams,” Faflick said. “We felt like after studying the numbers, 36 was a reasonable number.”

Competitive balance between public and private schools, which has been addressed by multiple states, was determined to not to be an issue by the committee.

Faflick said the committee decided early to treat private schools the same as public. They listened to proposals to create a separate classification for private schools and to create a multiplier — where private-school enrollments are multiplied by a predetermined number, such as 1.35 in Missouri — but determined there wasn’t enough evidence to support it.

“What is the magic number for a multiplier?” Faflick said. “There’s no research-based number, no evidence to say this is the best value you could use the multiplier for. Really, honestly, it’s kind of a shot in the dark.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2016 at 7:08 PM with the headline "KSHSAA proposal seeks to reframe size of classes."