AAA Central Region - Classification Issue

Classification Issue

Though AAA schools in Virginia are supposed to be around 1,500 students or larger, a considerable amount of schools in the Central Region are below this size and petition to play up in Group AAA. In fact out of the 32 Central Region member schools, 13 are Group AA size, and one is Group A size. Usually, the VHSL accepts petitions from schools that choose to do this. However, most members that play up to AAA usually have enrollments close to the AA/AAA cutoff. However, schools such as Colonial Heights High School and Maggie L. Walker High School in Richmond City enroll under 1,000 students; Walker High School is at around 600 and would be classified in Group A if they did not petition to play up.

The main reason why these schools play in AAA is to play with district schools that are nearby, rather than drive out farther away to play similarly sized schools. However, the region has enough AA sized members to create two AA districts (except for Walker) made up of smaller sized Central Region schools. Though it is not considered a "hot" issue at the moment, some VHSL officials are not particularly pleased with the fact that many schools in the Central Region that are small AA size or smaller continue to play up in AAA. This to some degree has caused Group AA to be the smallest group of the three classes (A schools tend to stay in Group A and not play up), and AAA to be the largest. This has also caused crowding in the AAA Eastern Region, which currently has 39 schools, and only five of them have elected to play up.