Category Archives: Reclassification

Campbell County School District board members voted Tuesday to add a second high school in Gillette.

Sound familiar? It should.

I’ve written about this issue before: How the logic doesn’t outweigh the emotion of such a decision (December 2014); how reclassification might fall out if Gillette adds a second school (March 2011); and the ties between a third school in Casper and a second in Gillette (October 2010).

Like I wrote in 2011, the decision to add a second high school in Gillette affects much more than what happens on the playing fields and courts. From a reclassification standpoint, though, the decision could create ripples that will be felt throughout the state.

If the new school opened in Gillette today, for all sports except football Riverton would go to Class 3A, Lovell to Class 2A and Riverside to Class 1A to accommodate the new school. And for football, Evanston would go to 3A, Buffalo to 2A, Wright to 1A 11-man and Upton to 1A six-man. (Remember, right now Lingle and Cokeville fall below the 11-man/six-man cutline but opt up to 11-man.)

The moves for four-class sports (basketball, volleyball, track, etc.), three-class sports (wrestling, cross country, etc.) and two-class sports (soccer, swimming, etc.) are less of a struggle than the moves for football. Remember in 2007 when Riverton debated opting down to 3A? The Wolverines could make that switch pretty seamlessly for most sports.

Football, though, could present a challenge. If Evanston grows a little bit, the 11th school in the WHSAA listings will likely be Sheridan. Neither Evanston nor Sheridan will likely want to move down a classification. Wyoming could go back to an 11-school 4A and an 11-school 3A to accommodate, which complicates scheduling among other concerns.

The new school is tentatively scheduled to open in fall 2017 — right in the middle of a two-year reclassification cycle for the WHSAA. That will further complicate matters….

Like I said in 2011, we could see a completely new high school classification system develop, with the new school in Gillette as the impetus.

–patrick

In August, the WHSAA released new ADMs (enrollment numbers) to its member schools. The WHSAA will use those numbers to classify schools for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years; that discussion begins in earnest Tuesday when the WHSA Board of Directors meets in Casper for the first of its four quarterly meetings and ends in November when the structures are finalized at the second WHSAA board meeting.

It’s not that simple, though.

On its surface, reclassification is straightforward: Your enrollment, and the enrollment of the schools around you, set where your school will be classified. And yet, every reclassification cycle is divisive, usually (1) because the small schools feel slighted for having to play much larger schools even though they’re in the same classification, (2) because a school moving to a new classification harms an existing rivalry or (3) because conferences within the classifications struggle to represent the classification as a whole.

No matter how reclassification comes out, someone is upset.

But what if I told you that reclassification — and all the heartache and frustration that comes with it — isn’t necessary? The solution is so obvious I’m embarrassed I hadn’t already realized it:

Let’s eliminate enrollment differences altogether and make every high school in the state have the same enrollment.

Think about it — if every school had the same enrollment, theoretically, every school would have the same chance as every other one in the state, and wouldn’t have the “handicap” of a small enrollment or the “advantage” of a large number of students. You’d get to play schools that are nearly the exact same size, and they’d be close by.

Obviously, exact isn’t feasible. But we can get close. Here is how:

Let’s start with the math. With 71 high schools, and a total ADM of 26,812, Wyoming high schools have an average of 378 students per listed high school. That’s the number we’ll aim for with our new schools.

Geography will keep most schools from hitting 378 students exactly, but I think a 50-student leeway on either side (creating a 100-student range of 328 to 428 students per school) would be acceptable.

As we piece together both the geography of Wyoming and the target number of 378, a pattern emerges. Using geography and enrollment as our guides, we can establish 72 feasible high schools that hit the enrollment range of 328 and 428 — one more high school than the state has now, but close enough to work. Of those 72, 45 schools are within 50 students of our target number of 378, and 21 are within 10 students of 378. The smallest is 330.5, the largest 411.

Ranked by enrollment, the schools are:

North Big Horn (Powell, Rocky Mountain, Lovell): 2 schools at 411 students each
Green River: 2 schools at 408.25 students each
Gillette: 6 schools at 406.5 students each
Rock Springs/Farson: 4 schools at 402.5 students each
Riverton: 2 schools at 393.8 students each
Platte County (Wheatland, Guernsey-Sunrise, Glendo, Chugwater): 1 school at 393.5 students
Northeast Conglomerated (Hulett, Moorcroft, Sundance, Upton, Newcastle, Wright): 2 schools at 389.8 students each
Laramie County (Central, East, South, Burns, Pine Bluffs): 11 schools at 385 students each
Carbon County (Rawlins, Snake River, Encampment, Saratoga, Hanna): 2 schools at 380 students each
West Fremont (Lander, Wyoming Indian, Fort Washakie, Dubois): 2 schools at 376.1 students each
Sublette/South Lincoln (Pinedale, Big Piney, Kemmerer, Cokeville): 2 schools at 375.8 students each
Johnson County (Buffalo, Kaycee): 1 school at 375 students
Outer Sheridan (Big Horn, Tongue River, Arvada-Clearmont, NSI): 1 school at 371.5 students
Converse County (Douglas, Glenrock): 2 schools at 368.5 students each
Natrona County (Natrona, Kelly Walsh, Midwest): 10 schools at 364.1 students each
Star Valley: 2 schools at 358.5 students each
South Big Horn Basin (Worland, Thermopolis, Ten Sleep, Meeteetse): 2 schools at 353.75 students each
East Fremont (Wind River, Shoshoni, St. Stephens, Arapahoe): 1 school at 353 students
South Big Horn (Greybull, Riverside, Burlington): 1 school at 352.5 students
Goshen/Niobrara (Torrington, Lingle, Southeast, Lusk): 2 schools at 347.25 students each
Albany County (Laramie, Rock River): 3 schools at 341.2 students each
Sheridan: 3 schools at 338.7 students each
Jackson: 2 schools at 336.5 students each
Uinta County (Evanston, Mountain View, Lyman): 4 schools at 335.75 students each
Cody: 2 schools at 330.5 students each

And I put them in 16 conferences, of 4-5 schools apiece, for ease of state tournament qualifying… By conference, the schools would fit this way:

Northeast (4 schools): Northeast Conglomerated (2 schools), Gillette (2 schools)
Gillette (4): Gillette (4 schools)
Sheridan (4): Outer Sheridan (1 school), Sheridan (3 school)
Casper 1 (5): Natrona County (5 schools)
Casper 2 (5): Natrona County (5 schools)
Southeast (5): Converse (2 schools), Platte (1 school), Goshen/Niobrara (2 schools)
Cheyenne 1 (5): Laramie County (5 schools)
Cheyenne 2 (5): Laramie County (5 schools)
Laramie (4): Laramie County (1 school), Albany County (3 schools)
Southwest 1 (5): Carbon County (2 schools), Rock Springs (3 schools)
Southwest 2 (5): Rock Springs (1 school), Green River (2 schools), Sublette/South Lincoln (2 schools)
Uinta (4): Uinta County (4 schools)
West (4): Star Valley (2 schools), Jackson (2 schools)
Fremont (5): West Fremont (2 schools), Riverton (2 schools), East Fremont (1 school)
North Central (4): South Big Horn County (1 school), South BHB (2 schools), Johnson County (1 school)
Northwest (4): Cody (2 schools), North Big Horn County (2 schools)

This proposal is befitting of the “Equality State” in every sense of the word equality.

Think about it: No classifications means no reclassification problems. Travel is dramatically reduced. No more complaints about the big school/little school divide, especially the consistent cries we hear from the small schools in 4A and 3A. True state champions. Competitive balance. Schools that can sponsor every sport and give every student an equal chance to succeed.

This is what we want.

Right?

(Inspired by The United States Redrawn as Fifty States with Equal Population. And, obviously, Jonathan Swift.)

–patrick

The 2013 football season is little more than a one-year stopover for reclassification.

A new cutoff for six-man football and a revised Class 2A will be established in 2014, and several schools will feel the effects of the new alignments.

This we know: With Rock River joining varsity play in 2014, and the Upton-Sundance co-op in agreement through 2015, the reclass cycle will be based on 64 participating schools. But where will each school end up?

That depends on each school’s enrollment. The ADMs (Average Daily Membership numbers) used by the WHSAA to reclassify schools will not be released until mid-August, but using enrollment figures posted on the Wyoming Department of Education’s website, we can estimate who might be moving where.

(Of course, WDE enrollment numbers and ADMs are different. This is by no means official — consider these educated guesses.)

4A/3A and 3A/2A: No anticipated changes.

2A/1A 11-man: Two teams will drop due to the new cutline of 14 Class 2A schools, down from 16. Right now, I anticipate those two schools will be Tongue River and Moorcroft.

1A 11-man/1A six-man: With the new cutline of 14, some six-man schools may have to be moved up. I anticipate those current six-man schools above the cutline for six-man will be Wyoming Indian and Saratoga; I anticipate that all other current six-man schools will fall below the cutline. I also foresee one school falling below the six-man cutline opting up to play 11-man — Cokeville.

++++

As for conferences:

4A and 3A will look the same.

New 2A: West: Big Piney, Kemmerer, Lyman, Mountain View, Pinedale, Greybull, Lovell. East: Big Horn, Newcastle, Thermopolis, Glenrock, Burns, Wright, Wheatland.

New 1A 11-man: West: Burlington, Cokeville, Wind River, Wyoming Indian, Riverside, Rocky Mountain, Saratoga, Shoshoni. East: Tongue River, Moorcroft, Upton-Sundance, Lusk, Lingle, Pine Bluffs, Southeast.

New 1A six-man: West: Snake River, Dubois, Meeteetse, Ten Sleep, St. Stephens, Farson. East: Hulett, Kaycee, Midwest, Guernsey, Hanna, NSI, Rock River.

In other words, the WHSAA’s worst nightmare — an odd number of teams in both divisions of 1A.

An odd number of schools in each classification creates numerous scheduling problems. The WHSAA’s best option is to try to convince one of the six-man schools to opt up to 11-man to join Cokeville, or to have one of the 11-man schools voluntarily choose to opt down to six-man, even though such a move would make that team ineligible for the playoffs.

Fortunately (?), the state has an even number of programs for both the 2014 and 2015 schools; the future of the Upton-Sundance co-op won’t be known until after the agreement between the two schools ends after the 2015 season.

Again, remember these are only estimates. We won’t know for sure who’s going where until the official numbers are released, and enrollment numbers and ADMs are different. Nevertheless, enrollment numbers tend to be close enough to ADMs to allow for educated guesses like these….

–patrick

I wanted to point out a column written by CST editor Chad Baldwin today about new high schools. Baldwin, my former boss and the guy who, in the end, allows me to continue working for the Star-Tribune on a freelance basis, scratches the surface of the issue well… but I disagree with him on one point:

There is no reason for Gillette to open a new school until Cheyenne and Casper do so first. Cheyenne did what I think was the right thing and got us halfway there; Casper, in short, messed up, not only for Casper but in part for Gillette, too.

As Baldwin’s editorial pointed out, the problems that popped up when Casper started talking about a new high school (or what ended up happening, a new building that holds all the programs the other schools can’t or won’t take…) basically crushed any hope of a third comprehensive high school in the city for decades to come. Chief among those problems was the school of choice option that exists in Casper; several others, including groupthink, inter-community speculation and paranoia, administrator bonus pay, conflicting goals within the district hierarchy and a desire to maintain ultra-competitive sports programs, gave Casper a new high school building without giving it a new high school.

One of the problems with the new school setup in Casper is the way the Natrona County School District reached this point. The new campus is classic design by committee; it satisfies everyone, therefore, it satisfies no one. When (not if) this new setup creates more new problems than it answers old, no one can take the blame. I guess that’s good if you’re playing CYA, but that shouldn’t be what education is about.

Obviously, more than athletics considerations went into this decision, and I don’t pretend to be an expert on school construction, funding and budgeting. But Cheyenne made it work. Casper didn’t make anything — it ended up with something.

There are many repercussions from what has happened in Casper, and athletics — not only in Casper, but statewide — will feel those repercussions for at least the next three decades. Because of this decision, I think it will be at least that long before a third comprehensive high school opens in Casper. And even though Gillette and Casper are two distinct communities with different funding, different priorities and different goals, I now think it will be at least that long before a second full-on high school in Gillette opens.

The benefits both communities would have by opening new high schools would mostly be felt in the activities arena: more teams, more spots. Maybe, probably, this means fewer championships. That has been the sticking point in many discussions, whether it’s better to have championship-caliber teams from a deeper talent pool or competitive teams from a shallower talent pool. However, new high schools in Gillette and Casper would give most of the large high schools in the state a “pool” that’s about the same depth — something that benefits every school, not just the schools in Gillette and Casper.

I think it is tougher for a community to go from one high school to two than it is to go from two to three. In that regard, Gillette arguably has a tougher decision to add a new high school than Casper does. It makes sense for Gillette to wait for other Wyoming communities to take the lead.

Cheyenne took that lead. Casper didn’t follow. Now Gillette won’t — and probably shouldn’t — sacrifice its one-school setup.

Now, barring a sudden population surge, we’ll have to wait until 2040 to revisit this again.

And, because of how the Natrona County School District made this decision, there’s no one to thank. Or blame.

–patrick (mad props to my wife Char for the graphic)