Hillcrest High School’s athletic teams will now compete in 5A Region 4, following a recent realignment of classifications and regions. 

This change comes after the school spent the 2023-24 school year in 4A Region 10. Before that, the Huskies had competed in both 5A and 6A classifications.

Canyons School District’s Director of High Schools Tom Sherwood, who is a Utah High School Activities Association’s Board of Trustees member, explained the classification process follows specific bylaws, with student populations being the most important factor in determining a school’s classification. 

“The first thing they look at is student populations,” he said. “For 4A, 5A and 6A schools, they only look at the schools’ enrollment in 11th and 12th grade. For smaller schools, they look at the whole school enrollment.”

Sherwood noted the UHSAA receives enrollment data from the state’s office of education, which is provided to the Board without identifying the schools.

“It’s a blind determination; they only see the enrollment. Then, they decide where the natural break is. Maybe they see 100 students’ difference between this school and that school, so they draw a line. That could be between 6A and 5A. Then, they calculate any school which has less than 10% fewer students than the schools in 5A to put them on a bubble; the same with the schools at the top of 5A, if they’re less than 10% from the 6A schools, they put them on the top of the bubble. That’s intentional to allow schools and the committee to be able to move schools back and forth depending on where they fit,” he said.

This results in two categories of schools: those firmly within a classification and those on the bubble, Sherwood explained.

Hillcrest’s frequent movement between classifications can be attributed to this system.

“Hillcrest was able to go 4A last realignment because their enrollment put them on the bottom of the 5A bubble,” he said. “Nobody was against Hillcrest staying in 4A now. The problem was, there isn’t any rule in place to allow it. They are now on the top of 5A because of the enrollment line, which means, the only two classifications they could be in were 5A or 6A. Overall, their enrollment didn’t change that much. When you’re dealing with 4A, 5A and the bottom of 6A, it’s only a couple 100 kids difference between all those.”

After enrollment, the only factor which could lower a school’s classification is if the school has more than 50% of students on free or reduced lunch. Hillcrest does not qualify, with about 40% of its students meeting that criteria, Sherwood said.

“Outside of free and reduced lunch, there are secondary determining factors they use for schools on the bubble to determine whether they go up or down (in classifications),” he said. 

These factors include athletic success, particularly in football, as football teams have separate alignments, Sherwood said.

“Based on all those criteria, there’s no way Hillcrest was going to be forced to go up, even though their enrollment was comparable to other 6A schools. But because Hillcrest was on the bubble, they were able to keep them in 5A because of those other criteria. If Hillcrest gets to where they have more than 50% on free or reduced lunch, they can go down without taking other criteria into consideration,” he said.

Another consideration for schools on the bubble is transient populations, which can influence student participation in sports, Sherwood said.

“They may look to participation rates so if you have 2,400 students in your school and only 400 of them play sports, that’s different than a school with 2,400 students and half of them play sports, which can correlate with reduced lunch, but not always,” he said. “Look at Brighton and Hillcrest, both have similar enrollments, but the teams aren’t. Brighton may have 150 kids on the football team while maybe there’s 40 on Hillcrest’s team. If somebody gets hurt on Brighton, there’s a higher likelihood of somebody else being able to take that place. There are a lot of differences between schools and their participation rates, and that’s something they currently don’t consider when aligning schools, but it can be something they look into for a bubble school.”

Hillcrest boys basketball coach and math teacher Brandon Sluga recognizes many students at Hillcrest come from transient families.

“A lot of those families are not necessarily in a position where they’re worried about playing sports,” he said before the realignment was finalized. “(If the UHSAA were to count only those) who play sports, Hillcrest is closer to 4A levels, but, wherever they place us, I’m fine with it.”

During realignment, school administrators, athletic directors and the public can offer input.

“Once the school is on a bubble, the school administrators get to present to the committee and plead their case with the reasons they think they should be in 4A versus 5A, or 5A versus 6A. By communicating what they want and why they think that’s best for their school, it helps the committee to decide where to place them,” Sherwood said. “A lot of times, a principal will say, ‘I would like to be in a region with these schools or schools that are similar to our school in demographics and mobility, and free and reduced lunch and participation rates.’”

For Hillcrest, factors like its international baccalaureate program also come into play.

“IB is something we always talked during the bubble conversation,” Sherwood said. “It’s another thing to consider, because IB is so demanding, so very few of those kids participate in sports. There are exceptions, but that number would be included and considered in the participation rate.”

Once classifications are finalized, the committee works to place teams in regions. Hillcrest will now compete in a region that includes Cyprus, Granger, Hunter, Kearns, Taylorsville, West and West Jordan.

“There are a lot of big schools in Granite (school) District, and they all have more than 50% free reduced lunch. Even though they’re 6A schools, their free and reduced lunches can move to 5A in with Hillcrest. It’s a good region for Hillcrest. We expect more competitive play for Hillcrest; all those schools are within the metro area, so it will reduce travel significantly and they’ll get more fans and better attendance at the events,” he said.

Sherwood also sees the matchups as beneficial for the Huskies.

“If you have a team that’s highly skilled and a team that’s not, the chances of injury to the less skilled team are high. By matching them as well as they can, the impact will be a more competitive region at the same level,” he said.

Hillcrest swim coach Elizabeth Drake is optimistic about the shift to 5A.

“I’m hoping it will raise the bar for some of our swimmers,” she said. “I hope they’ll get to swim against some better swimmers in 5A, even if they don’t place as high as 4A. It will push them to get better, swim faster.” 

Sherwood said the Board strives to ensure the realignment process is just and impartial as possible.

“They really do try to create environments where programs can thrive, and they look to put schools with similar demographics, participation rate, athletic success, historical success together,” he said. “They make the process as fair and equitable as possible.” λ