Athletic directors from the Kingco Conference’s high schools, including Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie, met this week to discuss a bevy of topics. The conference does a very good job of posting minutes of these meetings for media and public access on the league website, and in fact already has posted the minutes of this particular meeting, which you can see here. A topic that generated some discussion during the meeting among the assembled administrators is an issue that you may be hearing more about in the coming weeks and months, as it stands to potentially change how the conference is structured and also perhaps impact the athletic programs at both Mount Si and Cedarcrest High Schools, for very different reasons.
The issue is changing the structure and alignment of league scheduling in various sports, from one where schools are aligned and play within specific classifications based on the size of a school, to one which is more balanced based on factors such as skill level and size of various programs in an effort to promote competitive balance. It is described as “tiered” scheduling. Today, we are taking a look at what tiered scheduling could entail, and how it potentially could impact both MSHS and CHS’s athletic programs.
So what is tiered scheduling?
In the meeting, according to the minutes, it was indicated by Jesse Snyder, the athletic director at Kingco 4A’s Newport High School in Bellevue, a Mount Si league rival, that principals at schools around the conference have issued a mandate to AD’s and other athletic administrators in the conference to “effectively match and equate” teams within schedules. To that end, AD’s voted overwhelmingly to support the concept of this model in soccer. There are a number of different ways this could look – both inside and outside of the various classification footprints – but what this likely would entail is similar to what has been used thus far in other sports in Kingco, and which we have discussed previously here. Currently, some 4A schools, such as Newport, have specific teams – in the Knights’ case football – that are allowed to play outside of their classification against teams that are more similarly sized and skilled. This saw them last fall playing within Kingco 3A for football. Mount Si’s girls’ swim program has, for the past few years, also been in a similar arrangement, competing against Kingco 2A schools as opposed to Kingco 4A’s which would perhaps be more challenging than the 2A competition they currently are facing.
Additionally, gymnastics and wrestling this winter have seen Mount Si teams – and other Kingco 4A teams as well – competing against 2A and 3A league schools in Kingco competition, again perhaps owing to this idea being explored and tested by AD’s and principals.
A tiered model in soccer could see the top teams from the various classifications likely play one another in a league setup, so think Issaquah and Skyline in girls’ soccer for example playing strong 3A competition such as Bellevue or Mercer Island. With teams near the bottom end of the standings playing one another. So where could Mount Si fit in something like this? Hard to tell but based on past history, we’d think if a tiered structure were to happen, it could see Mount Si perhaps not playing the stronger 4A teams in lieu of playing more middle-of-the road 3A competition perhaps. Both for the boys and the girls.
Some AD’s in the discussion did express concern for teams that may be right in that middle, about how this could impact their chances of winning a league title or for that matter advancing to postseason. That all said, this tiered model is one that appears to be on its way to Kingco and will likely at some point involve all sports; in fact this was alluded to also in the meeting.
How could this impact Mount Si, Cedarcrest?
For the Valley’s two high schools, this discussion is something parents at both schools involved in their sports programs should pay attention to, but for completely different reasons. We’ll discuss those now.
Mount Si: Mount Si sports will be impacted significantly, and some sports, such as tennis, could benefit from the possible changes. For starters, strong teams at the school, such as basketball, baseball and football, could end up, in addition to seeing top 4A competition, also potentially be in position again to play teams such as Bellevue, which are also strong in those sports at the 3A level. Weaker teams, such as tennis, might be positioned to face smaller 2A competition that should be better from a skill level perspective than the difficult 4A competition the sport currently faces in league play. Travel will also be significantly impacted as well, as with teams being structured separate from one another most likely, there won’t be a set group of schools all Mount Si teams will travel to play, it’ll be a hodgepodge of teams from all different classifications in the conference. So a particular day in the fall might see cross country meet 2A’s such as Renton, Lindbergh or Highline in league action while volleyball is taking on 3A Mercer Island or Liberty and girls’ soccer gets 4A Bothell or North Creek.
Cedarcrest: When we discussed the concept of reclassification and potential league realignment last November, we mentioned that it was this issue specifically that could allow for a Kingco membership for CHS as opposed to remaining in their current arrangement within the Wesco Conference to be a good fit. Cedarcrest administrators have been adamant over the years about finding a league alignment that allowed for this type of scheduling for football, and last fall’s independent schedule was in that vision. However, the strong success they had in that schedule combined with issues with the lack of communication between administrators and parents about potential playoff opportunities has created we think behind the scenes increased attention to this issue amongst parents in that program, so the challenge as we discussed back at that time was to make sure there was a league scheduling alignment for them to work with this fall so a playoff opportunity could be more easily attained if similar success to last season were achieved this fall. Going to Kingco with this kind of a tiered scheduling model in football would fit we believe within that same vision.
Additionally, were CHS to land in Kingco with tiered scheduling guarantees for all sports, that could also benefit a sport such as volleyball, which has struggled for years both in Wesco and before them in the old Cascade Conference.
How might this impact postseason play?
If a tiered scheduling model similar to what we described above comes to pass, playoffs would remain split by the various classifications, but more likely than not a computer rankings system that accounts for differences in teams’ schedule strength would have to be devised in order to properly seed teams for postseason play. This piece of the discussion may be the biggest stumbling block for administrators to get through in order to implement this scheduling model.
Why is this model being considered, considering the increased costs for sports, especially travel?
We do not know specifically, so we only are being speculative here, but we suspect part of the thinking here may be a desire by principals to promote equity by emphasizing the competitive balance of teams as opposed to scheduling them based on classifications. As that issue and related subjects are for a lot of people politically charged these days, both inside and outside public education, we will refrain from that discussion here and instead focus on it from a sports standpoint to say that we think the principals have their heart in the right place here and that this is something that once it’s more formalized and folks are educated on it in the coming months, there should be good support for it from parents, coaches and athletes. Largely on the idea that you want your teams facing the best possible competition. That is an approach Mount Si’s girls’ soccer head coach Kate Deines took in her non-conference scheduling last fall, and one which is ultimately good for all sports. All leagues have issues with programs that are not up to par with the majority of programs in their league; Kingco is no exception. Remember the old days when Mount Si was part of Kingco 3A and their games against Sammamish in girls’ basketball, football and softball? Principals we believe are trying to bring that type of thing to an end and for that, we commend them.
Outlook for implementation, success
This seems to be an idea that is in its very early stages and one that may take considerable time to put into place. Ideally, we’d like to think that the league and its AD’s will, if not this fall, have this ready in time for the 2024-25 school year when the new classification alignments for Washington high school sports kick in, and this in particular could allow for Cedarcrest to explore a Kingco membership opportunity if one becomes available to them with this tiered scheduling approach in mind.
Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal 