Pace Academy won an appeal Tuesday to compete in Class AA beginning in 2020-21, but four other football-playing private schools with Class A enrollment — Christian Heritage, Darlington, Holy Innocents’ and Wesleyan - lost their final bids to join AA.
Denmark also won an appeal to play up and will join the other five Forsyth County public schools in the new Region 6-AAAAAAA next season. Denmark is currently a Class AAAA school but has experienced rapid enrollment growth since opening in 2018.
Pace is currently a member of AAA by choice, as the Atlanta school has Class A enrollment. Pace was denied its original request to join AA for the next academic year, but the GHSA reclassification committee approved Pace’s appeal Tuesday in Thomaston, allowing it to join a region with natural geographic rival Lovett. Pace, Lovett and Riverside Military will be the only football-playing private schools in AA in 2020-21.
Lovett’s case was supported by Atlanta Public Schools director of athletics Jasper Jewell, a GHSA reclassification committee member. APS schools Therrell, South Atlanta and Washington also will be in the new Region 6-AA with Pace and Lovett. The other Class A private schools lacked support from their receiving regions.
Meanwhile, Burke County won an appeal to remain in Class AAA on the basis of isolation, as it argued that travel in its assigned AAAA region would be a hardship. So instead of playing with Savannah schools in 3-AAAA, Burke will be with Augusta-area schools in 4-AAA.
Dalton, Ware County and Wayne County lost similar isolation appeals and must remain in the classes assigned them earlier this month. Dalton is in Region 5-AAAAAA with five schools from Douglas and Paulding counties, some 70-80 miles away. Ware and Wayne are in 1-AAAAA with Coffee, Veterans and Warner Robins. Dalton then got a second setback when denied by an 8-7-1 vote its request to move over to Region 6-AAAAAA, which comprises nine Cobb County schools.
Dalton was not alone in being turned down on its request for a different region. Also blocked were Alpharetta, Brooks County, Central of Talbotton, Eagle's Landing Christian, Hebron Christian, Newton, Salem, Shiloh, Turner County and Washington County.
Those winning appeals to change regions in the same classification were Duluth, Fannin County, Johnson County, Liberty County, McIntosh County Academy, Montgomery County, Mount Pisgah Christian, Northview, Treutlen, Oglethorpe County, Twiggs County and Warren County.
Macon schools Westside and Rutland were allowed to move up to AAAA. Westside of Augusta won an appeal to move down to AA.
Five schools that don’t play football were allowed to move up into AA. Those were Coretta Scott King Academy, Davidson Fine Arts, Elite Scholars, Johnson of Augusta and Technical Career Magnet.
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