ALBEMARLE — Next fall, Stanly County’s high schools will see reclassification changes that will result in a major realignment of their athletic teams.
At the Stanly County Board of Education meeting on Dec. 3, Dr. Carla Murray, the director of student services and athletics for Stanly County Schools, gave a presentation to the school board detailing the realignment handed down from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association based on NCHSAA Bylaw VI adopted back in May 2023.
While a realignment every four years is standard procedure, this next one for the 2025-26 academic year will have an extra caveat — the number of classifications for high school sports teams in the state will be expanded from four to eight based on the school’s average daily membership.
“Due to the increase in the number of member schools in North Carolina High School Athletic Association, they have done a reclassification of the schools so that no class would have more than 64 schools per classification,” Murray said. “They all fall in the middle of the classification, so there’s no risk of moving anytime soon, but they will do this reclassification every four years.”
Currently a 2A school, West Stanly (914 students) will be the 12th largest school in the 4A classification, while North Stanly (651 students) will jump from 2A to the become the 41st biggest school in the 3A classification.
Elsewhere, a trio of current 1A schools — Albemarle (528 students-16th), South Stanly (501 students-26th), and Gray Stone Day (405 students-49th) — will each move up to the 2A classification.
These five schools are already accustomed to participating in athletic conferences with split classifications, with West Stanly playing in the 2A/3A Rocky River Conference and the other four schools playing in the 1A/2A Yadkin Valley Conference.
For postseason matches, each school branches off from their conference into their respective playoff bracket based on classification.
“You should be seeing stuff coming out soon, because they’re going to have to go ahead and make these conferences so that they could go ahead and start scheduling games for next year,” said Stanly County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jarrod Dennis. “Next fall is going to come fast, and they have to find what their championship venues are going to be. It’s going to increase the number of venues they need available for championships.”
Dennis also noted that Stanly’s schools will continue to play each other in non-conference matchup settings, even if they are placed in separate conferences.