Changes in High School Sports Classifications to Have Little Effect on Rosemount

The Minnesota State High School League recently announced its new section assignments for the next two school years. The MSHSL Board Policy states that schools will be re-classified and re-assigned to sections every two years.

According to Rosemount High School Director of Athletics Michael Manning, there were a few changes that will affect Irish programs. Cretin-Derham Hall was added to the Section 3 in the AAAA classification. Eagan was added to Section 3 in the AAAAA class. In addition, track and field was moved back to Section 3 after being in Section 1 for the past few years.

“Eagan has been a pretty solid program for the past few years,” Manning said. “They've done a nice job and that will be of concern for us. Cretin has historically had some phenomenal basketball teams in the 90s and early 2000s. They can always attract some top-notch kids over there in St. Paul.”

The following is a brief look at how the MSHSL handles the section reassignments. Beginning in mid-February, enrollments were obtained from the Minnesota Department of Education. The current enrollment formula is 9-12 enrollment minus 40 percent of the Free and Reduced Lunch totals in 9-12 from every school.

After applying the above formula, the top 128 schools in enrollment are classified in Administrative Class AA. The rest of the schools are Administrative class A. Using the enrollments, each activity is then re-classified.

Once classes have been identified and schools have a chance to opt into a higher classification, the MSHSL begins re-sectioning the teams in each class. The re-sectioning process then takes place with the following guidelines:

• Start with the current placements
• Place schools new to that particular class in the nearest geographic region
• If necessary, move schools to balance the number of teams in each section

To view each section assignment in the state, click here. (http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/competitivesections.asp)