Arizona high schools would be allowed to petition to go down in class if a proposal presented to the Arizona Legislative Council in March is passed.
Currently, schools in Arizona can only appeal to move up in classification. The Arizona Interscholastic Association’s executive board met earlier this week to formalize the agenda for the March 5 session.
‘‘We’ve had a committee study classification of schools for two years,’’ AIA executive director Harold Slemmer said. ‘‘They looked at how other states went about determining placements of schools. The most common ways of classification are by enrollment or by sport. There would be an application process to appeal down. There would have to be a compelling reason to move down for that particular school. It also would have to be determined that a school moving down would not negatively impact the conference it was moving down in. It would have to be deemed appropriate for both the school and the conference.’’
The AIA also is looking at putting together an advisory committee comprised of club team leadership and AIA representatives to meet on a regular basis so the various club sport calendars can be coordinated with those of high school seasons.
‘‘We’ve had a good relationship with club leadership and it’s important to continue to foster that,’’ Slemmer said.
Another proposal is a bylaw addition for a weight management program for wrestling. The intent would be to strive to educate wrestlers on dropping weight, particularly not dropping more than is healthy. It would relate to body-fat percentage and body types set forth by the program in its implementation.
