The N.C. High School Athletic Association will move to eight classifications beginning with the 2025-2026 school year.
During the NCHSAA Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday, the board voted unanimously to adopt a recommendation from the realignment ad hoc committee to move to eight classifications in the next realignment.
The recommendation was delivered to the board by Erica Turner, the chair of the committee and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools Executive Director for Athletics.
NCHSAA member schools passed a bylaw requiring classifications be limited to no more than 64 schools. That meant the NCHSAA’s next realignment period would need a minimum of seven classifications.
Board member Tod Morgan explained on Wednesday that if the NCHSAA moved to seven classes, each class would consist of about 62 or 63 schools. The new bylaw prevents classifications from having more than 64 schools, so it would not leave a lot of room for new schools to join the NCHSAA.
Going to eight classifications meas each class would have about 54 or 55 schools, Morgan said.
Turner said giving the NCHSAA room to grow was the purpose of recommending eight classifications. The NCHSAA approved the addition of four more schools for the 2024-2025 school year on Wednesday, meaning the NCHSAA will consist of at least 440 schools next fall.
The new realignment will be created based solely on average daily membership numbers from the 2024-2025 school year.