By Dana Hess
For the S.D. NewsMedia Association
PIERRE — If the state’s high schools comply with some new policies, it may be easier for the South Dakota High School Activities Association to create football schedules.
The policies were approved at Thursday’s meeting of the SDHSAA board of directors.
One policy requires schools to report certain changes by the board’s February meeting during alignment years. For football, schools are ranked every two years by male average daily attendance to determine their classification so that they will play against teams from schools of a similar size.
Changes that must be reported in February include the addition or removal of football to the school’s offerings, new football cooperatives or the dissolution of football cooperatives.
Dan Swartos, SDHSAA executive director, described the policy change as “giving us a little more flexibility.”
Another policy allows SDHSAA to release football schedules as they are completed. It’s likely that schedules for the bigger schools, where there are rarely major changes in classifications, will be finished first. Forming football cooperatives is more common for smaller schools that field 11B and nine-man teams.
Getting schedules out to schools as they are finished will help them finalize their plans for homecoming, according to SDHSAA Assistant Executive Director Randy Soma who creates the football schedules.
Swartos said this time of year can create some scheduling problems as football practices begin and some smaller schools may realize that they don’t have enough students to field a team. The new policies earned unanimous approval from the SDHSAA board.
