Despite pushback to move to the 4A division, state officials prepare to keep Ashland in 5A competition as they prepare to finalize athletic classifications on Dec. 15

By Steve Mitchell, Ashland.news

Oregon’s governing body for high school activities is moving forward with athletic reclassifications that will place Ashland High School in competition with schools that have significantly higher participation rates.

Every four years, the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) restructures athletics in the state according to school enrollment, dividing schools into six classes, ranging from small (1A) to large (6A).

The OSAA committee reclassification alters leagues, schedules and competition schools face.

A separate ad hoc committee makes decisions for football classifications, leagues, and districts, according to the OSAA website.

OSAA’s upcoming decision on Monday, Dec. 15, will impact all other sports and activities, including basketball and baseball.

The final recommendation from OSAA’s committee for reclassification will put Ashland in a 5A-5 league with Crater, Eagle Point, and Henley High Schools, according to Nate Lowery with OSAA. For the last four years, Ashland has been classified as a 4A school.  

Alec Slinkard-Galpin, Ashland High School’s athletics and activities coordinator, said the 4A classification would be a better fit for the high school. The restructuring process, based on enrollment thresholds, recently dropped the 4A cutoff from 590 to 560, leaving Ashland above the line to qualify for 5A competition despite the high school’s petition to become a 4A school, Slinkard-Galpin said.

Slinkard-Galpin said in the new 5A-5 Southern Cascade Conference, Ashland will be at the “lower end” when it comes to athletic participation. Another uncertainty with playing in a four-team conference, Slinkard-Galpin said, is that Ashland would have to play the same team multiple times throughout the season and then face other teams in non-league games, which would likely entail additional travel.

Initially, Slinkard-Galpin said, Ashland was set to be placed in a 5A/6A hybrid conference where the school would have competed against schools with three times the participation numbers, larger athletes, deeper rosters, and resources Ashland does not have.

District officials, parents, and state Rep. Pam Marsh’s office spoke out against the hybrid, which prompted the committee to change course after its Dec. 1 meeting.

While the hybrid option is off the table, Slinkard-Galpin said the 4A placement is still the best fit for Ashland programs.

“Numbers are going to vary per sport,” Slinkard-Galpin said. “What resources we have available to us are going to be different, especially when you’re looking at some of those bigger schools.”

Slinkard-Galpin said Ashland may not have the same resources, facilities, and support as some of the other schools. Or the deep rosters that other programs have, he added, raising questions about how often Ashland teams can send in substitute athletes during games compared to their opponents, and whether Ashland can be competitive in every sport. Slinkard-Galpin said that’s not a slight against Ashland students.

“Our kids work very hard, but are they being set up for success? We have some teams that would be perfectly fine playing against 6A schools, and we have some other teams that shouldn’t be participating against those schools,” Slinkard-Galpin said. “And that’s OK. We can get there.”

The idea is to develop those programs over time, he said.

Lowery said the committee’s final recommendation is not the last step in the public process of restructuring the classifications.

Schools and the public can respond to the committee’s recommendations prior to the Dec. 15 executive meeting at 1 p.m., either through written or in-person testimony. Written testimony can be sent to [email protected], which will then be sent to the entire committee.

Email Ashland.news associate editor Steve Mitchell at [email protected].

Dec. 11: A previous version of this story wrongly reported that Ashland High School athletes had been competing in the 4A division. In fact, Ashland had always been classified as a 5A high school.