It’s official. Decatur High School will compete in the Class 3A division of the South Puget Sound League next season.
“I think everybody is encouraged,” said Decatur athletic director Kelly Kirk. “It’s going to be a pretty solid seven-team league.”
The 2009-10 edition of the SPSL 3A Division will include Decatur, Auburn Mountainview, Enumclaw, White River (Buckley), Bonney Lake, Peninsula (Purdy) and Lakes (Lakewood) high schools.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) released its final classification ranges for the 2010-12 cycle on Friday and the governing body of high school sports will be finalized Jan. 24. According to the numbers, the 4A division will include 66 schools with an enrollment range of 1,304 and up, 3A will have 66 schools (1.086-1,303), 2A will have 65 schools (5130-1,085), 1A will include 65 schools (208-512), 2B will include 62 schools (93-207) and 1B will have 62 schools (1-92).
There are a total of 387 member high schools in Washington and the goal of the WIAA is to have an even number of schools in each classification.
Decatur’s enrollment number of 1,018 students in grades 10 through 12 actually classifies them as a 2A school and Kirk and the rest of the school’s administrators had to “opt up” into Class 3A.
“We’re small,” Kirk said. “We are going to be the smallest school in the 3A league next year.”
The three other Federal Way district high school will remain in their respective Class 4A divisions of the SPSL. Thomas Jefferson and Federal Way will continue to compete in the SPSL North Division, while Beamer will stay in the SPSL South.
Jefferson (1,410 students) and Beamer’s (1,339) enrollment numbers fall above the 4A cutoff and Federal Way (1,206) already informed the WIAA that they will “opt up” to remain a 4A school, no matter what the cutoff turned out to be.
It also looks like Mount Rainier High School will take Decatur’s place as a 4A program in the SPSL. Mount Rainier, currently a 3A school in the Seamount League, has an enrollment of 1,495 students and has already applied to join the SPSL.
“It’s not going to be a cakewalk for us in 3A,” Kirk said. “There are some sports that will be even tougher for us in the 3A league. Our wrestling coach says it will be tougher next year.”
Dropping into 3A should have a positive effect for the Gators in sports they have struggled in during the past few years. Sports like cross country, football, boys tennis and volleyball in the fall, girls basketball and gymnastics in the winter and fastpitch, baseball and track during the spring.
According to Kirk, one of the only negatives about dropping into the Class 3A division of the SPSL is a greater transportation cost that Decatur would be responsible for. In the Federal Way school district, the individual school’s Associated Student Body (ASB) has to cover transportation costs to extracurricular events.
Moving into the SPSL’s 3A division would cost Decatur an extra $8,500 a year because of the longer bus rides to places like Peninsula and White River, according to Kirk. Currently, Decatur’s ASB spends between $30,000 and $35,000 a year on transportation costs competing in the SPSL South Division.
