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Public schools in North Carolina will find out later in 2025 which conferences they will play sports in for the 2025-29 seasons.

Every four years, the NC High School Athletic Association has a realignment committee that is tasked with drawing up sports conferences. With the fluctuation of school populations, this is needed to keep conferences competitive and schools from having to drive long distances for games.

A new wrinkle has been thrown into the current realignment plan as the NCHSAA schools will go from four conferences to eight in all sports starting with the 2025-26 season. So you could say the task is double the work.

A lot has happened up to this point in the timeline of getting the new conferences drawn up:

How we got to eight classifications

The public schools will be broken up into equal classifications. This past April, the NCHSAA adopted the Big 32 model. The largest 32 schools across the state will be in Class 8A. The Class 1-A-7A divisions will have 60 schools each. The determination is based on average daily membership (ADM) numbers only.

The first (but not last) draft

Just before Christmas, the NCHSAA released a first rough draft of what conferences could look like. Schools will have the opportunity to provide feedback along the way, including now, before a final draft is released toward the end of the school year.

Charter schools, others remain

One thing that won’t be considered is the status of charter schools and others being placed into a different conference. A proposal was submitted by Nash Central Principal Dr. Jonathan Tribula to put schools that don’t have a defined attendance zone into their own conference. That means schools that don’t have their county broken up into zones for attendance, which may give them an unfair advantage. That proposal was discussed but no action was taken.

Also being discussed

At the fall board meeting, realignment wasn’t the only thing discussed. The NCHSAA chose not to sanction flag football as one of its sports. The group will take up the sport again next year. There is also consideration for boys volleyball.