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[southpaw]

The PIAA website has all enrollments per district and sport.

My totally unsupportable guess cutoff number for A-AA-AAA in football for 6 classes would be around the same number as it is now for four classes in basketball. In other words teams that are AA in basketball would be AA in a 6 class football scenario.

[Opinionguy]

Someone asked what my small/big A conferences would look like.

First off, District 5A, you are going to have to form your own conference. You have 10 teams, you have your own district playoffs, you are going to have to beat these schools to qualify. Now, we can allow you 2 cross over games to one of the D6 A conferences to continue Rivalries, but that is up to your AD. Top 6 qualify

D5A:
Windber
North Star
Myersdale
Tussey Mountain
Northern Bedford
Conemaugh Township
Berlin
Rockwood
Shade
Turkeyfoot

Now for the fun part. In this system I am allowing the top 14 to qualify for District Playoffs, bringing back the 1 and 2 seed byes for the first round. Now, here is where you gain or lose. Big school gets top 8 to qualify, small school gets top 6. Each school. Each school is going to have 7 conference games, and two crossover games. Those are up to your AD, whether you want to try and schedule a large school, or maybe a district 5A team. Cross over games are not going to count toward playoffs.

District 6A Large School
Richland
West Branch
Ligonier
United
Mount Union
Southern
Mo Valley
Bellwood
Bishop Guilfoyle
Northern Cambria
Blairsville
Penns Manor

Small School 6A
Conemaugh Valley
Saltsburg
Homer Center
Portage
Juniata Valley
Glendale
Bishop Carroll
Claysburg
Ferndale
Laurel Valley
Blacklick Valley
Williamsburg

[Opinionguy]

Ok. I also took my best stab at six classifications for our district. Again, with our region, even with six classifications, you are going to run into scheduling conflicts with the bigger schools. I combined District 5-6 for everything

Top 8 qualify
A 1-140:
Bishop Carroll
Claysburg
Ferndale
Laurel Valley
Blacklick Valley
Williamsburg
Shade
Turkeyfoot
Rockwood
Berlin
Glendale
Portage
Homer Center
Penns Manor
Conemaugh Valley
Saltsburg

AA 145-230:
Marion Center
Bishop McCort
Everett
Cambria Heights
Penns Valley
Richland
West Branch
Ligonier
United
Mount Union
Southern
Mo Valley
Bellwood
Bishop Guilfoyle
Northern Bedford
Blairsville

AAA 231-350-Top 6 Qualify:
Westmont
Philipsburg
Central
Penn Cambria
Tyrone
Bald Eagle Area
Central Cambria
Forest Hills
Huntingdon
Somerset
Bedford
Cheasnut Ridge

AAAA 351-600- Top 4 Qualify
Lewistown
Bellefonte
Indian Valley
Johnstown
Central Mountain
Holidaysburg

5A 601-960- Top 4 Qualify

6A >961 Top 2 Qualify
State College
Altoona

I really don't think going to 6 classifications is going to solve anything. The Catholic Schools are still going to rule the PIAA.

[southpaw]

The Catholic school situation needs to be addressed. I think that the private school situation is even worse. Why should kids in public schools have to compete with Glen Mills, or GJr. Republic, MMA, Milton Hershey, and Scotland.

OG you think that the Parochial Schools have an unfair advantage it pales in comparison to the Private Prep Schools. Don't believe me go the Ship this spring to the Track and Field Championships and see for your self.

Play them in the regular season fine. But they should not be able to compete for state championships in the PIAA. They should have their own championship like they used to.

My solution for catholic schools is to have their enrollment count as a CoOp for every school they recruit from! Just like every other school that has a CoOp to field a team.

[Opinionguy]

Well, that'd be a solution, but I think the ultimate is like you said, play them in the regular season great.

Playoffs, it's Public vs. Public.

Maybe these other schools can have a National Tournament or something if there aren't enough schools for a playoff system.

[flakjacket]

Why wouldn't we just take a page out of the Greater Johnstown Vo-Tech's playbook?

Here it is:
Let the kids all go to the school of their choice, but they have to play athletics at their home school. They can have all the private education they can handle, but come game time they have to be at the school district in which they reside.