02/22/24- Football Draft Realignment for 2025 through 2026 seasons Released

February 23, 2024 Football Blog Updates

Football Alignment Update and Opportunity to Play Into a Higher Class and Withdraw from District
 
TO: Superintendents, Principals, Athletic Directors and Designated Representatives of Football Playing Schools
 
FR: Commissioner Julian Tackett
 
RE: Update on the Drafting of 2025 and 2026 Football Alignment, Opportunity to Withdraw From District Play or Make Other Notes for Consideration
 
At its meeting in January, the KHSAA Board of Control discussed and confirmed the parameters surrounding an alignment of teams in football for the 2025 and 2026 playing seasons. This communication is solely about classification and geographic alignment development. The needed information was received from the KDE around the mid part of January, and has been formatted in accordance with the Board’s approved process. Information about the realignment, including drafting maps, is available online on the khsaa.org/football website, by selecting the “Football Alignment/Realignment Information” pull-down menu.

Your response to the linked form is due on or before APRIL 15, 2024.
 
The following decisions should be considered finalized within the drafting of the alignment for this classification period:
 
SCHEDULING MORATORIUM

• Please consider that there is, for 2025 and beyond, a scheduling moratorium in place for weeks 6 through 11 of the scheduling calendar (page 4 of the document at https://ly.khsaa.org/u3nq.
• Until further notice, contracts signed for 2025 for those weeks will not be considered valid or enforceable. 
• Until the alignment is finalized, do not schedule contests in those weeks. 
• It is the intent of the Commissioner and Board of Control to complete this project not later than its May 7-8 meeting. 
• Once it is adopted as final, the remainder of the schedule for the 2025 season and beyond can be finalized.

RECLASSIFICATION RESPONSE FORM

• During this process, schools are asked for responses. 
• The first step is the Withdrawal/Comments form located here. 
• Responding schools must be securely logged in to the KHSAA school subdomain (https://schools.khsaa.org) to view or submit this form. 
• The form is used for schools desiring to withdraw from district play or making other reclassification project comments.
• There is no opportunity to request to play in a higher class on this form.

ENROLLMENT FIGURES

• The enrollment figures used to divide the teams into classes are the average number of boys enrolled as reported on the KDE second-month report (growth factor membership) for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. 
• Those enrollment/membership numbers are listed on the KHSAA website at the links on the realignment pull-down menu. 

ALIGNMENT DRAFTING PRINCIPLES

• The draft alignment for the classification shows the ranked average boys enrollment for both 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 numbers. 
• The highest 30 ranked enrollments are placed in 6A (including Hopkinsville and Christian County who had previously requested for 2023-2026 to be in Class 6A due to the inevitable size of their consolidated school, and the lowest 32 schools in Class 1A (plus an additional two schools who had withdrawn from the last alignment but were in size and geographic proximity to rejoin a district. The remaining classes have 39 schools in the draft in 5A and 4A, and 40 schools in 2A and 3A.

COMMENTS

• The remainder of the response form may be used for comments or suggestions. If you are mentioning a geographic problem with the district, please be prepared to also include a remedy to that problem.

COMMITMENT TO PLAYING IN THE DISTRICT AND WITHDRAWAL FROM THE DISTRICT

• Unless a school requests not to be placed in a district as part of this process (withdraws), each school will be placed in a district as part of the classification process. 
• The process to withdraw prior to the final alignment must be done via the response form that is part of this notice.
• Once placed in a district:
  • A default forfeit fee of $1500 per game will exist if no additional contract is signed between the schools.
  • After being placed in a district, if a school withdraws from district competition at any point during the classification period, the school will be considered liable for the default forfeit fee, payable to each member school in the district, for each remaining required district game during the entire classification period, unless a mutual agreement is reached by all of the teams.
  • In addition, a school withdrawing from district play will be ineligible to compete in the postseason competition for the remainder of the classification period, and will not be eligible for postseason play again until the 2027 playing season following the next classification process.
  • Specific penalties will be determined by the Commissioner’s office for any school withdrawing from postseason play in any year after the draw for pairings is determined.
  • A school withdrawing from district play may continue to play regular season competition during the classification period but is not eligible for postseason competition.
• To withdraw from the district competition period for the 2025 and 2026 periods, representatives must complete the Playing up/Comment form located here. 
• SCHOOLS DO NOT NEED TO RESPOND TO THE SURVEY IF THEY DO NOT NEED TO WITHDRAW FROM DISTRICT PLAY AND HAVE NO OTHER SPECIFIC REQUEST REGARDING ALIGNMENT.
• All form responses will be published on the KHSAA website on the realignment page.

COMPOSITION OF DISTRICTS AND FINAL ALIGNMENT PROCEDURE

• The Board of Control will consider a draft alignment of teams at its next meeting on May 7-8, 2024 meeting, following the receipt of any FB139 forms and drafting of any proposed geographic district changes by the Commissioner’s office. 

SCHEDULING GRID

• The scheduling grid will continue to be utilized for 2025 and 2026 and any revisions will be adopted at the May meeting prior to the lifting of the scheduling moratorium.

Member schools and their administrations should contact Commissioner Julian Tackett (jtackett@khsaa.org) at the KHSAA if there are any questions and are asked to share their intent to appear at the May meeting in case these are logistical needs.