A proposal to expand some girls sports to five classes is one of the items on the agenda for this week’s Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union Board of Directors meeting. Union Executive Director Mike Dick says that the size differences between schools within each division have gotten out of hand.
Dick says there is an enrollment disparity in the classes, for example in 4A, the biggest school is over 2,100 enrollment, while the smallest school is 500 or 600. He says looking at the disparity may shrink it in all classes, not just 4A.
Dick says that with fewer and fewer small schools each year, the Board would likely have to make adjustments to the classification system at some point, if not now. He says all the schools they are losing right now are 1A schools. Dick says that the board has a very wide range of options available to them on Wednesday.
He says they could make a change in the number of classes, or they could just discuss it and take not action. Dick says he doesn’t expect the board to make a change at this meeting, but instead to keep discussing the issue for another month or two. According to Dick, enrollments and classifications are something that the Union reviews on an almost constant basis, as that is part of good business to keep up with the changes. He says you have to tweak the numbers within the classes every few years as the enrollments continue to change.
While he can’t predict what action the board will take on Wednesday, Dick says that he has seen an increase in support for the five-class proposal. He says the first time they brought it up, he thought there was not any interest, but he says there does seem to be support throughout.
One of the other items on the board’s plate this week is deciding where to hold the 2011 State Volleyball Tournament. The U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids has hosted the event for years, but will be unavailable in 2011 due to renovations.
By Jesse Gavin KCNZ Cedar Falls