Now that the UIL’s website is no longer crashing, if you want to see the breakdown for all classifications, you can check out the UIL’s 2010 realignment page. You can find links to a release with all the UIL’s rules and enrollment formulas for realignment, the UIL calendar and even playoff brackets.
What you won’t find is the UIL’s enrollment numbers for each school. For some reason, the UIL releases this later.
RISD athletic director Bob Dubey forwarded me the enrollment numbers the district turned in for each school. You know how Richardson High is portrayed as a school that really should be in 4A? It’s not even the smallest 5A RISD school. Guess who is:
Berkner: 2,723.5
Richardson: 2,410
Lake Highlands: 2,281
Pearce (4A): 1,965.5
At 2,281, LH isn’t that far off from the 5A-4A cutoff of 2,065, which is a drop from 2,085 two years ago. And two years ago, LH’s number was 2,331. This was the first time since 1990 that the 5A-4A cutoff number dropped. It shows a widening gap between the mega-schools like Skyline, Plano and Allen and everyone else.
If the trend continues, look for LH to stay on the smaller side of the 5A pool. It would still take a significant drop for LH to be a 4A school. I don’t have any statistics to quote, but with the number of young families moving into my LH neighborhood, I think LH’s enrollment will remain steady, if not grow.
If 5A ever goes to the split-division concept, as 2A, 1A and Six-Man have, LH would still be competing with much bigger schools for playoff berths. (The Split-division concept, which is only for football, divides a classification in half before the season begins, creating big school and small school divisions) Historically, LH has been competitive with mega schools on an individual basis. It’s only when a district is overloaded with huge schools, such as putting three Plano schools and Allen in one district, that LH and other normal-sized schools are at a disadvantage.
One other note from realignment: Tyler John Tyler dropped to 4A. That means no more rematches with Cujo in the second round of the football playoffs. Longview, a former LH non-district foe from 1996 to 2005, took JT’s place in the East Texas-Mesquite district.
