WHSAA Proposes New Method for Reclassifying High School Sports Conferences

CASPER, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - Wyoming high school sports teams could be looking at different teams on their schedules in the near future.

A new proposal by the Wyoming High School Athletic Association would put schools into classes based on their average enrollment.

Ron Laird, the commissioner of the WHSAA, said that this change is to limit the amount that schools usually move during the reclassification process.

He said, “We’ve had a lot of schools that, you know cause we do it every two years, one cycle they’ll be 1A next cycle they’re 2A, or they’ll be 2A then 3A then they come back to 2A. So when that happens they have to redo their whole schedule all the time cause they go into a new conference and you know those types of things. So this should help prevent that amount of movement every time we look at reclass.”

The way the breakdown would work out is as follows:

4A would need 700 or more students enrolled.

3A would need 210-699 students enrolled.

2A would need 110-209 students enrolled.

1A would need less than 110 students enrolled.

If this were to be in effect this season, 4A would have 15 schools, 3A would have 16 schools, 2A would need 14 schools, and 1A would have 23 schools.

This new reclassification would be for all sports except football.

While this new change would limit the amount that teams move between conferences, Laird also understands that sometimes the conferences wouldn’t have even teams.

He said, “The advantage is your school’s numbers are going to dictate where you end up. The disadvantage is we’re not going to have even numbers all the time.”

This proposal did pass through the February meeting, but it has to pass through again during the April meeting.

Also, this would not be in effect until the 2024-25 high school sports season.

Copyright 2023 KGWN. All rights reserved.