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2018 ADM numbers


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Three initial thoughts:

 

(1) How does T.C. Williams simply not win bunches of state titles per year with that kind of enrollment disparity?!

 

(2) A fictional “Tazewell County High School would have 1693 students, which would be solidly 5A.  The nearest 5A opponent would be Patrick Henry of Roanoke.

 

(3) There’s some big-time gaming of the system to get Western Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Monticello in 3A.  Definitely some moles tunneling between ACPS and the VHSL to arrange that travesty.

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I know that it's been beaten like a drum, but this is another reminder that I'm pretty sure that there were 10 Division 3 or higher schools on the Virginia side of the SWVASports coverage area in 2000. Nine out of those ten have dropped at least one enrollment classification since then. (Lee, Grundy, Gate City, Abingdon, Marion, Richlands, Tazewell, Graham, and Pulaski; Carroll is still 4A). I know that D3 & D4 are not the same as 3A & 4A, but in theory there's a correlation between the two systems.

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9 hours ago, UVAObserver said:

Three initial thoughts:

 

(1) How does T.C. Williams simply not win bunches of state titles per year with that kind of enrollment disparity?!

 

(2) A fictional “Tazewell County High School would have 1693 students, which would be solidly 5A.  The nearest 5A opponent would be Patrick Henry of Roanoke.

 

(3) There’s some big-time gaming of the system to get Western Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Monticello in 3A.  Definitely some moles tunneling between ACPS and the VHSL to arrange that travesty.

 

A fictional Wise County HS would have an enrollment of 1714, and they could play each other 9 times in the regular season, with each having the remaining game with Pat Henry. Wonder if those 9 games would be like the Union - Richlands games and be decided in the closing seconds?

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2 hours ago, JDHoss said:

 

A fictional Wise County HS would have an enrollment of 1714, and they could play each other 9 times in the regular season, with each having the remaining game with Pat Henry. Wonder if those 9 games would be like the Union - Richlands games and be decided in the closing seconds?

Would be a hell of a season if it was.....

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19 hours ago, UVAObserver said:

Three initial thoughts:

 

(1) How does T.C. Williams simply not win bunches of state titles per year with that kind of enrollment disparity?!

 

(2) A fictional “Tazewell County High School would have 1693 students, which would be solidly 5A.  The nearest 5A opponent would be Patrick Henry of Roanoke.

 

(3) There’s some big-time gaming of the system to get Western Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Monticello in 3A.  Definitely some moles tunneling between ACPS and the VHSL to arrange that travesty.

A vast majority of TC Williams' students speak English as a second language. Football is not part of their culture. This can be said for many of the Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington area. There are 33 5A/6A schools and a select few compete in football. Many football players transfer to schools like Westfield because football is not important to the student body at the their "home" school. Fairfax County population is 1.2 million, Arlington County (the smallest county in the country) 225,000, City of Alexandria population 150,000 with one high school.

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1 hour ago, Bluefield researcher said:

A vast majority of TC Williams' students speak English as a second language. Football is not part of their culture. This can be said for many of the Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington area. There are 33 5A/6A schools and a select few compete in football. Many football players transfer to schools like Westfield because football is not important to the student body at the their "home" school. Fairfax County population is 1.2 million, Arlington County (the smallest county in the country) 225,000, City of Alexandria population 150,000 with one high school.

That being the case, I would expect an equal level of domination in soccer and tennis.  TCW won a few in those sports, and did have a powerhouse back in the 1990s, but has been largely dormant.

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18 hours ago, Plywood_King said:

I know that it's been beaten like a drum, but this is another reminder that I'm pretty sure that there were 10 Division 3 or higher schools on the Virginia side of the SWVASports coverage area in 2000. Nine out of those ten have dropped at least one enrollment classification since then. (Lee, Grundy, Gate City, Abingdon, Marion, Richlands, Tazewell, Graham, and Pulaski; Carroll is still 4A). I know that D3 & D4 are not the same as 3A & 4A, but in theory there's a correlation between the two systems.

Even if you go back a touch further. Grundy and Richlands had enrollments over 1,000 as recent at the mid 90's. Hell, schools like Garden and Hurley were D2 in the old format with enrollments over the current numbers of Richlands, Tazewell, Graham, etc. 

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Carroll County will drop to Class 3 for the next cycle having already fallen well below the threshold for Class 4.  Grayson County is already very close to the Class 1 threshold and could possibly drop.  Grayson had 680 students for the 2002-2003 school year.  According to the link provided by the OP, they are now sitting at 489 with an 8th grade class roughly 26 students smaller than the current senior class.  I expect to see Grayson in Class 1 next cycle.

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Couple of thoughts....

1.  There are at least one (and probably two) too many classifications within the VHSL.  One for the smallest schools and one for the largest with two in between should be completely sufficient to ensure some level of competitive equity.  The current system of six -- with its constant bouncing up and down for most schools from 2A to 4A -- completely wrecks any aims or notions of scheduling consistency (which in itself is a hardship, IMO).

2.  Admittedly I'm no fan of Liberty Christian Academy competing in the VHSL at all, but their ADM numbers bear extremely close scrutiny.  You guys in 2A are not going to be happy about playing their semi-professional/international teams if and when they drop down to that level.

 

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21 minutes ago, RichlandsAlum said:

Couple of thoughts....

1.  There are at least one (and probably two) too many classifications within the VHSL.  One for the smallest schools and one for the largest with two in between should be completely sufficient to ensure some level of competitive equity.  The current system of six -- with its constant bouncing up and down for most schools from 2A to 4A -- completely wrecks any aims or notions of scheduling consistency (which in itself is a hardship, IMO).

2.  Admittedly I'm no fan of Liberty Christian Academy competing in the VHSL at all, but their ADM numbers bear extremely close scrutiny.  You guys in 2A are not going to be happy about playing their semi-professional/international teams if and when they drop down to that level.

 

It was my understanding, LCA's agreement with VHSL was that each student counts as one and one-half towards VHSL ADM figures to offset their being allowed to recruit.

LCA is home to 812 students in 9th through 12th grades. In order to compete at the 4A level, it chose a multiplier to make up for the deficit of facing schools with larger populations. Each student will count as one-and-a-half to make up for that deficit.

The above quote is from the Lynchburg News and Advance on May 20, 2015.  It doesn't appear to be printed or worded correctly.  I understood the rule to be each student in grades 9-12 would be counted as 1.5 students to offset LCA's ability to recruit.  The link provided by the OP has LCA at 738 so their official VHSL ADM would be 1107 (738 x 1.5 = 1107).  Which would place them in the upper limit of Class 3 with only six Class 3 schools larger than 1107.

Am I not understanding the agreement correctly?

Edit to add: I completely agree with your first thought.  Given the volume of fluctuation for some schools between classifications, it seems like a 5 class system may be a little less volatile. 

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I'm not sure how much of LCA's agreement with the VHSL is public -- mainly because it was a settlement reached as a result of threatened litigation.  

To start with, I find it extremely hard to believe that they've lost 74 students since 2015.  I suppose it's possible in the wake of their decision not to pair enrollment at LCA with guaranteed admission/reduced tuition at LU.  But I'd still love to know how the VHSL is vetting their reported numbers.

Another alleged detail of their deal was that all of their participants will have to be drawn from the attendance area of the Lynchburg City School district within a certain period of time.  Not many people in this area trust them to stick with that -- and the perceived administrative costs and difficulty associated with enforcement seem to be pretty significant as well.  And if it were enforced, one would think that this would actually reduce their numbers for classification purposes -- even with the multiplier in effect.

Not sure why the VHSL didn't test this in court (although I have my own theories about that). 

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Not saying they are correct, probably are not, but the Roanoke Times ran an article on it a couple of days ago and said LCA just missed the cutoff by 6 students.

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/high_schools/byrd-alleghany-among-vhsl-schools-expected-to-change-classes-in/article_2c856036-080c-59d8-b894-f9181d39a5ce.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

Quote

Other changes :

  • Liberty Christian will move from Class 4 to Class 3, and the VHSL’s lone private school missed being Class 2 by six students.

 

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On 6/4/2018 at 7:04 AM, sixcat said:

Carroll County will drop to Class 3 for the next cycle having already fallen well below the threshold for Class 4.  Grayson County is already very close to the Class 1 threshold and could possibly drop.  Grayson had 680 students for the 2002-2003 school year.  According to the link provided by the OP, they are now sitting at 489 with an 8th grade class roughly 26 students smaller than the current senior class.  I expect to see Grayson in Class 1 next cycle.

Graham would already be there if not for the Pocahontas kids.  My Pocahontas-graduate wife thinks this is precisely the reason TCPS closed Pocahontas, and I’m not all that disinclined to believe her...

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8 hours ago, Liam McPoyle said:

Much to the chagrin of Chilhowie and the rest of Class 1, neither George Wythe nor Riverheads will be moving up.

Augusta County will rearrange school district boundaries in whatever way they have to in order for Riverheads to remain Class 1.  They will eventually perfect the system so Buffalo Gap will fall to 1A as well.

https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/2015/02/06/county-school-zones-changing/22978385/

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On 6/4/2018 at 9:26 AM, RichlandsAlum said:

Another alleged detail of their deal was that all of their participants will have to be drawn from the attendance area of the Lynchburg City School district within a certain period of time.  Not many people in this area trust them to stick with that -- and the perceived administrative costs and difficulty associated with enforcement seem to be pretty significant as well.  And if it were enforced, one would think that this would actually reduce their numbers for classification purposes -- even with the multiplier in effect.

I have friends who live in the outskirts of Forest...their kids go to LCA...two of them are FANTASTIC swimmers.

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5 hours ago, sixcat said:

Augusta County will rearrange school district boundaries in whatever way they have to in order for Riverheads to remain Class 1.  They will eventually perfect the system so Buffalo Gap will fall to 1A as well.

https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/2015/02/06/county-school-zones-changing/22978385/

How can they send kids from Riverheads to Wilson Memorial...they are no where close to each other and Stuarts Draft is between them...

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41 minutes ago, GMan said:

How can they send kids from Riverheads to Wilson Memorial...they are no where close to each other and Stuarts Draft is between them...

As the old saying goes, where there is smoke, there is fire!  This has been a hot topic across Virginia for several years because it's based in truth.  I don't know the why's or the how's behind the policy shift in Augusta County.  My former boss left Galax to return to Augusta County about three and a half years ago.  His father-in-law passed away so he moved back to care for his elderly mother-in-law and parents.  He grew up there and isn't a fan of the "manipulation taking place within the school system to give county schools as many opportunities as possible to compete on a state level".  Those are his exact words in a recent letter to the editor.

His belief is, they will shift boundaries slowly, so not to draw too much attention.  Buffalo Gap will eventually become Class 1 along with Riverheads while Fort Defiance, Wilson Memorial and Stuarts Draft will be Class 3.  The thought behind this is, Class 3 is more "top heavy" while Class 2 has a competitive balance unmatched in the lower 4 classifications.  Class 3 would give those schools more and better opportunities to compete for state titles.

I don't know if this is indeed true, but my former boss seems convinced it is.  

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1 hour ago, sixcat said:

As the old saying goes, where there is smoke, there is fire!  This has been a hot topic across Virginia for several years because it's based in truth.  I don't know the why's or the how's behind the policy shift in Augusta County.  My former boss left Galax to return to Augusta County about three and a half years ago.  His father-in-law passed away so he moved back to care for his elderly mother-in-law and parents.  He grew up there and isn't a fan of the "manipulation taking place within the school system to give county schools as many opportunities as possible to compete on a state level".  Those are his exact words in a recent letter to the editor.

His belief is, they will shift boundaries slowly, so not to draw too much attention.  Buffalo Gap will eventually become Class 1 along with Riverheads while Fort Defiance, Wilson Memorial and Stuarts Draft will be Class 3.  The thought behind this is, Class 3 is more "top heavy" while Class 2 has a competitive balance unmatched in the lower 4 classifications.  Class 3 would give those schools more and better opportunities to compete for state titles.

I don't know if this is indeed true, but my former boss seems convinced it is.  

Another fun dynamic within the Augusta County footprint is the adjacency/presence of two independent city school systems (Waynesboro and Staunton) and a number of private schools with full athletic programs that are within reasonable commuting distance.  The allegations of recruiting by certain SW Virginia football programs (*ahem*) pale in comparison to the outright solicitation and marketing of players and programs that takes place there.   My sister lives within the city limits of Waynesboro but was a faculty member at Stuarts Draft for many years.  My nephew started high school at Draft, was strongly "encouraged" for his entire four years to stay at Waynesboro, and ultimately graduated from a nearby private school in Charlottesville (where he had accepted a scholarship to play basketball).  And during that entire time Robert E. Lee and a couple of other public schools were whispering in his ear.

So yeah, I can definitely believe that the Augusta school system has a policy directive which places value on its schools' ability to compete on a state level.

 

 

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