Shortcoming in the System, Part 1: The plight of school 28

The last major change to Wyoming’s high school classification system came in 2001.

In the past 15 years, the system hasn’t changed. The schools have.

Wyoming’s high schools — and, by proxy, the Wyoming High School Activities Association — have struggled to devise a classification system that works for all schools for all sports except football. The problems show up most significantly in Class 3A, particularly those in the bottom quarter of the 16-team classification.

Not only are the schools at the bottom of Class 3A smaller, they’re also less competitive than they were 15 years ago. However, a small tweak to the state’s existing classification system could help solve the problem that’s dogged the bottom of 3A, and therefore the entire system, for the past several years.

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In Wyoming high school sports, no school has it more difficult than school No. 28.

When the Wyoming High School Activities Association sets its classifications every two years, school No. 28 of Wyoming’s 71 athletics-sponsoring high schools is in a difficult spot — the smallest school in Class 3A.

Consistently, the same schools end up in the 28th spot: Mountain View, Thermopolis, Lovell, Glenrock and Lyman. And Mountain View, Thermopolis, Lovell and Kemmerer have all recently been school 29 — the biggest in Class 2A.

In 2001, when the WHSAA went from enrollment-based cutoffs (e.g., smaller than 104 students was 1A, and so on) to a set number of schools per classification (the 12 largest in 4A, the next 16 largest in 3A, the next 20 largest in 2A, the rest in 1A), the splits worked pretty well. The smallest 3A school, school 28, floated at about 300 students; the largest 2A school was about 250 students, or maybe a bit smaller. However, that cutoff has changed dramatically. For the next reclassification cycle, set to start in the fall of 2016, school 28 will be Lyman at 210 students. In 1998, the school ranked 28th — the cutoff between 3A and 2A — had 288 students.

The problem, though, isn’t that the smallest 3A schools are shrinking. It’s that the biggest schools in 3A aren’t shrinking as fast.

In the past 15 years, the largest discrepancy to crop up is the one between the largest and smallest schools in Class 3A. Almost all schools near the 3A/2A cutoff line 15 years ago — Kemmerer, Glenrock, Mountain View, Lyman, Lovell, Thermopolis, Newcastle, Wheatland — have all gotten smaller. The ones that have grown only grew by minuscule amounts. (The exception is Pinedale, where natural gas development prompted a huge influx of students.) The schools at the top of 3A are smaller, too… but their rate of loss is not nearly like that of those schools near the bottom of the classification.

And while the most recent reclassification cycle has Glenrock, Kemmerer and Lovell in 2A, the other four small schools hovering near the 2A/3A cutoff (Newcastle, Wheatland, Lyman and Thermopolis) are still in 3A despite having lost significant numbers of students.

This is almost exclusively a 3A problem. For 4A, 2A and 1A, the 12-16-20-rest setup continues to work. For example, the gap between the largest 2A school and the smallest 2A school has remained fairly static: In 2005, the smallest 2A school had 97 students; entering 2016, it will be at 87.

Here’s a quick glance at the school ranked 13th (largest 3A using current classification rules), schools 24-28 (the bottom five in 3A) and 29-32 (the largest three in 2A) over the years:

1976
13. Powell, 645
…
24. Wheatland, 322
25. Lovell, 266
26. Kemmerer, 262
27. Greybull, 227
28. Glenrock, 217
——-
29. Lusk, 203
30. St. Mary’s, 190
31. Sundance, 181
32. Pinedale, 178

1981
13. Cody, 718
…
24. Glenrock, 330
25. Thermopolis, 316
26. Lovell, 247
27. Kemmerer, 233
28. Greybull, 214
——-
29. Lyman, 197
30. Pinedale, 192
31. Hanna, 192
32. Sundance, 192

1985
13. Cody, 693
…
24. Glenrock, 321
25. Thermopolis, 304
26. Kemmerer, 248
27. Lyman, 237
28. Mountain View, 236
——-
29. Lovell, 228
30. Greybull, 192
31. Wind River, 187
32. Pinedale, 185

1998
13. Lander, 787
…
24. Kemmerer, 331
25. Lyman, 316
26. Mountain View, 309
27. Glenrock, 306
28. Thermopolis, 288
——-
29. Lovell, 254
30. Wyoming Indian, 240
31. Big Piney, 218
32. Wright, 200

2005
13. Jackson, 743
…
24. Glenrock, 257
25. Kemmerer, 244
26. Pinedale, 221
27. Thermopolis, 216
28. Mountain View, 213
——-
29. Lovell, 209
30. Lyman, 200
31. Big Piney, 192
32. Greybull, 168

2007
13. Cody, 695
…
24. Glenrock, 253
25. Pinedale, 249
26. Kemmerer, 210
27. Lyman, 208
28. Lovell, 204
——-
29. Mountain View, 196
30. Thermopolis, 189
31. Big Piney, 179
32. Wright, 173

2009
13. Cody, 671
…
24. Newcastle, 260
25. Glenrock, 223
26. Lyman, 218
27. Mountain View, 213
28. Thermopolis, 204
——-
29. Kemmerer, 199
30. Lovell, 199
31. Big Piney, 187
32. Burns, 181

2011
13. Star Valley, 734
…
24. Wheatland, 286
25. Newcastle, 248
26. Mountain View, 226
27. Lyman, 225
28. Glenrock, 219
——-
29. Lovell, 214
30. Big Piney, 203
31. Thermopolis, 201
32. Kemmerer and Burns, 183

2014
13. Star Valley, 717
…
24. Wheatland, 298
25. Newcastle, 237
26. Mountain View, 222
27. Glenrock, 222
28. Lovell, 215
——-
29. Thermopolis, 210
30. Lyman, 204
31. Big Piney, 198
32. Kemmerer, 177

2016
13. Riverton, 742
…
24. Wheatland, 272
25. Mountain View, 236
26. Newcastle, 224
27. Thermopolis, 215
28. Lyman, 210
——-
29. Lovell, 204
30. Moorcroft, 193
31. Big Piney, 192
32. Glenrock, 191

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As noted, the problem is not just the schools’ ranking — it’s also their size relative to other 3A schools.

This wouldn’t be a problem if competitiveness had stayed consistent even as the enrollments have changed. Over the past five years, though, we’ve seen a definitive shift in 3A’s competitiveness.

In short, no size means no chance. For 3A, the 12-16-20-rest classification splits have been a competitive death sentence for schools at the bottom.

Part 2, tomorrow: How small 3A schools’ decreasing enrollments has diminished those schools’ ability to stay competitive.

–patrick