THOMASTON, Ga. – The Georgia High School Association reclassification committee denied two Hall County Schools’ appeals to move from Class 5A to Class 4A on Monday at the GHSA office.
Johnson and Flowery Branch will remain in Class 5A after their appeals were unsuccessful during the reclass hearings. Johnson and Flowery Branch are the only two Hall County Schools not in Class 4A. Chestatee, Cherokee Bluff, East Hall, North Hall and West Hall will be in Class 4A.
The GHSA uses a multiplier system to count out-of-district students. Johnson has 90 OOD students, while Flowery Branch has 139. When the GHSA applies the multiplier to both schools (3.o), it pushes Branch and Johnson from Class 4A numbers to Class 5A.
Both school athletic directors, Chris Griffin (Flowery Branch) and Lewis Pulliam (Johnson), based their arguments on the number of students transferring in the county to take part in the programs of choice. They also cited travel concerns and losses in gate revenue. Johnson also used competitive balance in its argument.
Hall County School District is a program of choice system, which means each high school has a specialty program that students across the county can enroll in. For example, Flowery Branch offers the STEAM program, an honors engineering program that integrates Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. If a student in any Hall County School District wants to enroll in the program, they may do so.
Johnson offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB) program and the International Scholars Academy (JISA), also part of HCSD’s program of choice.
Griffin was disappointed the appeal wasn’t approved.
“We appealed to the GHSA to play in a classification that was comparable to our enrollment and in a region with closer travel times,” Griffin said. “GHSA denied our appeal, and so we’ll play in Class 5A for the next two years. We aren’t sure which region at this point.”
Looking at the map, Flowery Branch and Johnson could go either east or west. Most likely, the GHSA will toss them in a region with East Forsyth, North Oconee, Winder-Barrow, Jefferson, Madison County and Eastside. On Friday, Walnut Grove and Cedar Shoals, who most likely would have ended up in the Northeast Georgia region, appealed to move to Class 6A. Also, Richmond Academy in the Augusta area lost its appeal to move to Class 4A, which would have helped them with travel. So, where does Richmond Academy go? South to Statesboro or west to the Northeast Georgia region or to the Macon region?
Flowery Branch and Johnson could appeal their region placement — the GHSA could have those out Monday evening — and opt to go to the metro-Atlanta area and play against Cambridge, Centennial, Chattahoochee, Northview and Blessed Trinity.
However, this is all speculation about where teams will be housed for the 2026-2028 seasons. Again, the GHSA could have those regions out late Monday afternoon. When those are released to the public, we will update the story.
Schools will then have the opportunity to appeal their region placement.
The post Flowery Branch, Johnson denied at GHSA reclass hearing appeared first on AccessWdun.
