11/11/13- Movement of Schools in Alignment, Basketball 15th Region

November 11, 2013 Athletic Department Blog Updates

At its regular meeting on Monday, October 11, the Board of Control voted to approve the unanimous request of the seven public school superintendents in the Basketball 15th region to make two alignment changes in an effort to balance the number of teams in each district within the region. The move is effective with the 2014-2015 playing seasons and will impact baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and volleyball.

The changes will be:

• In Baseball, Basketball, Volleyball and Softball, Lawrence County will move from District 57 to District 60, to be in the district with Belfry, Phelps, and Pike County Central.
• In the sports in which they participate, Piarist Academy would move into District 59 to join East Ridge, Pikeville and Shelby Valley and create a four team district thereby reducing the 58th district to four teams.
• In SOCCER ONLY, Lawrence County will move from District 57 to District 58 to be paired with its natural new district teams. The alignment in soccer in this area is ever evolving and will likely continue to change as new teams are formed.

The Superintendents from Floyd County, Johnson County, Lawrence County, Martin County, Paintsville Independent, Pike County and Pikeville Independent presented as rationale for their request, the following main criteria:

• Eliminate where there exists enough teams in the region, all three team districts.
• Correct the disparity where the 15th region is the one and only region in the state that has a five-team district in the same region with two three-team districts for a variety of reasons:
• Competitive fairness, imbalance in opportunities to advance to regional tournament which not only impact participation opportunities, but athletic department finances;
• Tournament administration disparities (additional nights and costs of hosting five team tournament vs. three team district)

The Superintendents recognized with their proposal as did the Board of Control in its lengthy discussion, that in some cases, particularly dependent upon the route chosen, there would be changes in the travel required for district games and additional travel for some teams for specific games. For example, each of the existing teams in the 60th district would be required (if the decision were made to seed) to make one additional trip within the region, and Lawrence County, if the decision were to seed, would be forced to make three additional trips. But the Superintendents had previously discussed and considered that issue and felt the overriding issue of fairness to all the schools in terms of district alignment was compelling when compared to all other issues. The Board of Control concurred with the Superintendents in approving the proposal. It was recognized that the change would likely not meet with unanimous approval, but represented the best current option in remedying the competitive fairness due to the imbalance in the current alignment.

In implementing this decision, schools in all four districts will need to conduct meetings in the coming months to discuss seeding and site selection requests.

Thanks to all of the Superintendents, Principals, Athletic Directors and Coaches for their feedback during this discussion.