High school athletics AHSAA reclassifications present major changes

MADISON – The idea has been passed around for the last several years and now the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) has turned the idea into reality as the governing body of high school athletics in Alabama for 104 years has decided to split public and private schools in athletics for championship play beginning this fall as part of its new classifications for the 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 school years. In addition to the public-private split, the AHSAA has eliminated the seven-class system and instead decided to go to a six-classification system for public schools and two classifications for private schools.

Public and private schools can continue to compete against one another during the regular season of play, but will compete for the championship rounds differently in their own classification.

The AHSAA Central Board also voted to do away with the Class 7A largest school classification with the 32 largest schools now participating under the banner of Class 6A. Those schools include Bob Jones, James Clemens and Sparkman, all of which will be placed in Region 4, which will be home to Buckhorn, Gadsden City, Grissom, Hazel Green and Huntsville.

For the small campus belonging to Madison Academy, the private school Mustangs will be placed in Double A, Region 2. Besides the Madison based private school, the new classification Region 2 will include American Christian Academy, Briarwood Christian, John Carroll Catholic, Lee-Scott Academy, Randolph, St. John Paul II Catholic and Westminster Christian Academy. The closest schools in the region for the three Huntsville-Madison based schools will be two in Birmingham and one in Tuscaloosa, which means longer travel to play those Region foes.

“One thing is very evident as our travel budgets will be greatly increased,” said Mark Mincher, athletic director of Madison Academy. “We knew the split was a possibility but didn’t expect the move to happen this reclassification cycle. Since this announcement just happened, we aren’t sure of all of the ramifications of the decision to split.”

Classification is based on Average Daily Membership (ADM) figures furnished by the State Department of Education for public schools, while member private schools report that information to the AHSAA. The breakdown for the next two years include Class 6A (32), Class 5A (64), Class 4A (66), Class 3A (66), Class 2A (65), Class 1A (69), Private School Class Double-A (17) and Private School Single-A (43). The enroll- ment numbers were: Auburn the largest school (2,240) and Hoover second largest (2,124). Third largest school is Sparkman (1,734), fourth is James Clemens (1,656) and Bob Jones the ninth largest (1,542). In Private Double-A, McGill-Toolen Catholic of Mobile is the largest (483) while Madison Academy is fifteenth (205).

More than 175,000 student-athletes are expected to participate in AHSAA sports activities each school year.