IHSA announces changes to classifications; multiplier

EFFINGHAM — Changes are coming for Illinois High School Association-member schools starting in the fall.

The IHSA announced earlier Wednesday that there are three changes — all of which would impact teams in the Effingham Daily News coverage area.

The first was a move back to fixed classification cutoffs.

For baseball, Class 1A will cut off at schools with an enrollment of 300 students or less. Class 2A will be 300.01 to 700 students, and Class 3A will be 700.01 to 1,600.

The same figures are for boys and girls basketball, softball, and volleyball — sports with four classifications.

This means Class 3A Effingham, which was one of the smallest 3A schools with 688 students enrolled — according to the IHSA website — would slide down to 2A for those sports. Class 2A Cumberland would also slide to 1A.

"We're around that cusp every year of being one of the smaller 3A schools, so getting a chance to compete as one of the bigger 2A schools, that's always a positive," Flaming Hearts athletic director Mack Thompson said. "I don't know if that will affect us a whole lot for the regular season; we'll still play our conference games and whatnot, but come postseason time, that will give us a chance to compete with schools more around our size."

A statement, sent by IHSA assistant executive director Matt Troha, read that the enrollment cutoff figures were determined by the average classification from the past four years and then rounding up or down to the nearest 50th or 100th. He said some sports were adjusted slightly based on class participation trends over the past two years.

Executive director Craig Anderson said in the statement, "Previously, we used a percentage-based formula to determine which State Series class each school would compete in. Over half of the IHSA membership consists of schools with 500 students or less. Looking at the current enrollment trends in the state, especially for schools with enrollments of 600 or less, we reached a belief that the percentage-based formula system is rapidly going to create competitive equity issues in certain sports and activities. Returning to a set enrollment cutoff system, which the IHSA used in the two-class era from 1971 to 2007, should bring greater consistency and understanding to the process for our schools. The IHSA Board will evaluate the cutoffs annually, but it is our hope that if and when changes are necessary, we are able to forecast and report them in advance to aid our schools in their schedule preparation."

The IHSA also announced a change to the multiplier waiver process for non-boundary schools.

Beginning in the fall, the automatic waiver process will be eliminated and replaced by an annual waiver application process if the school has met the minimum criteria.

For baseball, softball, boys and girls basketball and volleyball, that criteria is a sectional final appearance.

St. Anthony appeared in the sectional finals over the last three-year term in volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball, which would move them to Class 2A in all of the sports listed.

The multiplier was set to 1.65 in 2005 and takes the current enrollment of the school multiplied by 1.65 to get the total enrollment of where each sport will be slotted.

St. Anthony has an enrollment of 218 kids. With the multiplier, the enrollment would increase to 360 students.

The statement read that non-boundary schools eligible will be required to apply for the waiver online in the IHSA Schools Center. IHSA staff would then review each waiver request with the school name removed and vote to approve or deny. A simple majority vote would determine the result.

"The multiplier waiver was initially implemented in hopes of trying to provide greater competitive equity to teams who were being embarrassed in their multiplied class in certain sports," said Anderson in the statement. "Our member schools have been nearly unanimous in expressing their concerns that the current waiver system was not working as intended. The formula used to determine the automatic waivers wasn't encompassing enough data, which created too many holes in the process. The result was often teams who were already highly competitive in higher classifications being granted waivers to play in lower classifications. The new two-tier process to determine waivers will encompass more data that we believe will improve competitive equity overall."

What does this do for the highly successful boys and girls golf teams at St. Anthony?

The third point brought to the IHSA was the Success Adjustment Policy.

Regardless of enrollment figures, the statement read that a team that "has won two state final trophies in the past three years in a sport" would be subject to the adjustment and move up one class in that sport for one year. After that, the school would move down to the original class if they didn't win a state trophy the year of the move in classification.

The boys golf team at St. Anthony has won the last three Class 1A state titles, meaning that it would move to 2A in the fall. The girls golf team advanced to the state tournament last year after a three-year hiatus, so it would stay at 1A.

"This Policy has only been in place for a decade, so we can continue to review and explore how it can be best utilized to improve competitive equity," said Anderson in the statement. "The Board felt like this slight change in the timeframe for applying this policy was a more accurate measure of a program's current competitive standing. The Board continues to discuss changes to it, including the possibility of applying it to all IHSA member schools based on the results of the most recent membership questionnaire."

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