With the enrollment numbers official (for now) and cutoffs having been provided by the UIL last Friday morning, we now have a good idea of where our favorite schools will be competing district-wise during the 2024-26 realignment cycle. The only guesses at this point are what the impact will be once district assignments are officially doled out by the UIL next February.
It appears the status quo will remain largely in place for two more years, although it’s rare that a realignment cycle occurs without any discernible change. The following is a fairly educated guess about where Texas Panhandle schools will end up when districts are set, with the emphasis being on football. Now that the season is officially over, every area school can now start trying to set schedules for the next two years.
Here’s a look at the Panhandle by each classification from 5A to 1A.
Class 5A
As per the 2022-24 cycle, the entire area 5A contingent in the state will consist of the four Amarillo ISD schools, Amarillo High, Caprock, Palo Duro and Tascosa, all of whom fall comfortably into the Class 5A enrollment parameters.
AHS, Caprock and Tascosa will all stay in the Division I half in football. They’ll likely still share that district with Lubbock Coronado and Lubbock Monterey to be sure, and possibly Abilene High again. The bottom cutoff number for Division I is 1,903 students.
How close does it appear that all four AISD high schools came to being in the same district in every sport? Palo Duro turned in exactly 1,900 students during snapshot day in October, making the Dons possibly the biggest 5A Division II school in the state.
Should District 2-5A Division I remain in place, there will be a significant trade-off, which would benefit the AISD schools competitively on the gridiron. Lubbock Cooper, which was in 2-5A D-I last season, turned in 1,893 students, missing the D-I cutoff. Perennially struggling Lubbock High turned in 1,918 students, putting the Westerners into D-I territory and into the district. There could be a crazy scenario where El Paso joins the fray. Stay tuned come February.
In all other sports outside of football, all four AISD schools and Plainview will likely stay in the same 5A district, 3-5A.
Class 4A
It looks like the status quo holds in this class, at least as far as remaining in class, as all of the area’s 4A schools will stay there for the next two years.
Except for one catch, which wasn’t unexpected. West Plains, the newest school in the area, will move up to Division I in football, which makes for a perfect 4A marriage for the next two years. The Wolves will join fellow Canyon ISD schools Canyon High and Randall in the football district with Dumas, Hereford and Pampa in District 3-4A Division I. There is the possibility Hereford moves south but we won’t know that until Feb. 1 when the UIL officially releases the new districts.
What won’t change is District 4-4A in all the other sports. The half-dozen schools listed above will be joined again by Borger and Perryton in the other sports. It was expected that perhaps due to last summer’s tornado that Perryton would lose a bunch of students for this school year, but Perryton turned in a total of 588 students, well above the UIL’s projected bottom 4A cutline of 545. Perryton and Borger are likely forming a district with Lubbock-Cooper Liberty, a dropping Lubbock Estacado team from Division I and Levelland.
Class 3A
All but one of the 10 Texas Panhandle schools currently classified in 3A will be staying there for the next two years, as Spearman will drop to Class 2A. What will change within the class is football districts.
Bushland, Dalhart and River Road will all stay in Division I and likely in the same district. They likely won’t be joined by Muleshoe, who turned in 350 students, just below the Division I cutoff of 369.
It would make sense that Muleshoe will join Canadian, Childress, Dimmitt, Friona and Tulia in District 3-3A Division II on the gridiron.
Class 2A
While Spearman will drop down to 2A, Boys Ranch will drop down to Class 1A with 93 students, making the Roughriders the newest area team having to adapt to Six-Man football. The biggest news, though, is what’s happening with the two area schools who just finished their seasons by making their respective state semifinals.
Sunray, who reached the 2A Division II semis, reported 188 students, putting the Bobcats in Division I, just above the D-I cutoff of 181.5. Stratford, who reached the 2A D-I semis, reported 165, placing the Elks in Division II for the next two years, meaning these two northern Panhandle schools will switch places for the next two football seasons.
One other school, Shamrock, reported 99.5 students, below the 2A cutoff of 105 students. Yet, it’s likely the school will opt to stay up in Class 2A for all sports, including football.
Class 1A
This classification represents the state’s smallest schools who also play Six-Man football, yet in the Texas Panhandle, it may be where the biggest change will be seen for the next two years.
Three schools who barely made the cut for 1A Division I will drop to Division II for football. With the cutoff at 61.5 students at the bottom of D-I, McLean and Miami, with 60 students each, will both compete in Division II for the next two years. While McLean’s enrollment stayed exactly the same, Miami’s dropped from 62, lowering the Warriors a notch.
Joining those two in D-II will be Follett, who turned in 53 students, dropping from 60 during the last realignment. Those three schools should make the Panhandle much more competitive overall in 1A D-II for the next two years.
There will be two new faces in D-I to compensate somewhat for those losses. Booker, which bit the bullet and played an outlaw Six-Man schedule last season after spending its entire history as an 11-Man program, reported 94 students to make the move official and into a district in 2024. The Kiowas will be joined by Boys Ranch as new programs in 1A D-I.
For the record, Hedley is the smallest UIL school in the Panhandle with 23 students, followed closely by Darrouzett at 25.
