February 2, 2026 • 20 mins
UIL Executive Director Dr. Jamey Harrison joins the show to share some of the guidelines and thought process behind today's UIL realignment release.
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Speaker 2 (00:00):
With that.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's always a very enormous project that the UIL puts together,
headed up by the executive director, doctor Jamie Harrison, who
joins us right now for a few minutes, and that's
why we wanted to jump right in with it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Jamie, I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Have you been able to catch your breath yet, not
only because after all the hard work you and the
staff put together, but all of the feedback that you've
gotten from the member schools all across the state of
Texas following this morning's release.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Craig really appreciate you having me and spend a little
time talking about this. You know how important it is
to the entire state. It's really one of the few
things that visually any state agency can do that touches
every square inch of the two hundred and sixty five
thousand square miles that is Texas. And people are pretty
serious about trophies in our states, so this is a
(00:51):
big deal. We're working on catching our breath. We have
received a lot of feedback, honestly, probably three to one,
maybe four to one positive to negative, But there are
some people who think we missed it. On occasion, certainly
in the general public but generally looking at the map
helps tell the story much better well.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
No doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And for folks who may be tuning in, and I'm
familiar with the process, you know, the questions you and
I always you know, I always ask of you every year,
even before it, and when we were doing the television
piece of it was folks are asked, why, why is
it necessary to do it? Why is it necessary to
do it every other year? Why not every year or
(01:35):
every three years? What is the rationale behind the biennial
piece of it?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And You've always had a really good explanation for it.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, So there's a number of factors that go into
that one. In a state like ours, schools grow and
get bigger, and some schools lose kids and get smaller,
and so doing it every two years accounts better for
those changes in enrollment than if we were to do
it in a you know, on a longer basis than
two years. And then, of course football is pretty important
(02:08):
in the state of Texas, and it works out really
well for scheduling for football. If you do an every
year thing, you don't get to home and home return
game that you get on a two year basis, So
you do it on a two year basis. We play
at my place this year, we played at your place
next year. Now we're all square, it's time to do
it again.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Let me get your thoughts on the challenges this year,
because you had, by my count I think it was
something like nineteen schools moving up from five A to
six A. You had about as many moving down somewhere
in that neighborhood. And then you have the ones who
elevated by request as well, those who wanted to remain
as six A schools rather than drop to five A. Although
(02:50):
I know across the state the ripples are going there.
Everybody sees the perennial giant Desta accepted its five A
enrollment and decided not to opt up this year. But
how about your thoughts on the challenges this year, what
you faced with the schools, not only the ones that
were moving up five A to six A, but the
ripple effect that caused in districts and.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Regions and with these schools.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So I'll give you a what I would call a
relative short answer, because we could talk for six hours
on that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So, you know, each map, meaning it's each conference kind
of brings with it. It's its own challenges. But when
you're looking at the largest conferences six A and five A,
because schools are so aggregated in Austin, San Antonio, Houston,
and DFW, any schools who aren't in those areas become outliers,
and so it becomes a real challenge to try to
(03:44):
get everybody into a district and still try to balance
the size of districts in terms of numbers of teams
that are that are in those districts. You know, you
know the geography of Texas as well as anybody I've
ever met because of all of your travels with high
school football. Just think with me, the four schools on
the Permian Basin in Midland and Odessa, and then out
(04:05):
in the Concho Valley in San Angelo, the remaining schools
from what forever was known as the Little Southwest Conference.
There's those five to their north, there are zero six
A schools left in Texas. Zero To their west, you
go all the way to El Paso before you get
to a six day school. To their south, you go
(04:26):
all the way to Del Rio, and to their east
you go all the way to Grandburry and Weatherford. So
that creates some real challenges when trying to put the
map together. And then you know, there are some other
district options that create additional creativity opportunities on some maps,
but limit your chances at putting districts together on others.
(04:47):
For example, in five A and Division one, Houston Iceedy
opted all their schools up to Division one, fort Worth
icety opted all their schools up to Division one. As
you know, on a division map you only have sixteen districts. Well,
that takes two districts off the board, right, those two
get their own districts because of how many schools they have,
But on the corresponding division two maps, it leaves no district.
(05:10):
Now for the first time, thinking anybody can remember on
the six A map there's not a Houston ISD district.
They just don't. They don't have enough schools to have
Houston ID six A district. So it really changes things
trying to piece together what a lot of folks in
the general public don't know that. You know, schools in
the same ISD. By rule have to be put in
(05:32):
the same district. And so when you get into DFW
or Austin and you get you know, Leander now has
five six A schools in division I mean in six A,
round Rock hats five. Those have to be together. Each
of those set the five, so we've got to find
two or three to go with them. So you've got
(05:53):
an I with four and I with three and I
with seven, and you're trying to piece that together to
make around eighteen district. It gets a real challenge. And
with those schools coming up, I mean, I know you're
here in Austin, you're talking about the whole state, but
specific to Central Texas. The Central Texas landscape changed dramatically
with those Leander schools coming up to six A. That
(06:13):
changes the map quite a bit in six A, and
then that just trickles down into what happens with five day.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That's where I was going next because of Cedar Park,
Leander Rals, and Eastview all moving up to six A.
This I've looked at it and I said, Okay, there's
a ripple effect. Now the round Rock schools and the
Leanders schools aren't in the same district for the first
time that I remember in a while. Not only that,
(06:41):
and maybe you can answer this question for me, Jamie,
When is the last time that the Greater Austin area
had three full six A districts. I'm racking my brain
trying to remember this, because here it is. In District
twenty four, you got Van der Griff, you got Cedar Park,
you got Vista Ridge, Eastview, Huddo, Leander and Raws. And
then you jumped twenty five you got Lake Travis, Westlake
(07:02):
and the five Round Rock schools.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And then you have a separate.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
District in twenty six with the AISD schools Austin High, Aikins,
and Bowie, along with Hayes moving up you to Johnsondale
Valley and Dripping Springs. I got to believe the AISD
schools are dancing in the streets today because of not
having to begin.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
With what's lake in Lake Travis?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
But can you remember the last time this area had
six highest classification districts three high's classification districts?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Honestly I can't, And the answer is because I can't remember.
I mean, if you just go from Georgetown North down
to Butta South, there's twenty one schools in six A.
We've just not had that in Central Texas and quite
some time. With twenty one, that can't be two districts, right,
I mean, we tried really hard to avoid making ten
(07:55):
team districts. We can by rule, but it's not a
good idea. We can't make more than ten by rule.
So when you get twenty one, that's going to be
three districts. And so again, when you look at the
puzzle pieces, with round Rock having this many and Leander
having that many that you can't split up. You got
to figure out how to make that work. So we
(08:15):
were able to find three sevens and balance that out.
But that extra district means one of those Central Texas
schools is going to Region three. Because you've got two
districts in the Rio Grand Valley, you only have eight
in a region. So so Region four eight districts with two
in the Rio Grand Valley, and then working your way
up you get to eight before you get to that
(08:38):
northernmost Central Texas district.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, which, by the way, for folks who want a
little more clarity on what that means, that means it
is now mathematically possible for say, Vandergrift to play Westlake
for a state championship or Vandergrift to play Lake Travis
for a state championship in football, depending on the enrollment
in which divisions they go.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I'm always curious.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
About about that cusp, that that that separator between regions
UH two and three and three and four, and when
we've had it in the Greater Houston area for a
long long time, and obviously in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
But now I think Austin folks could look.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
At that and say, wow, if vander Grift is as
good as they've been the last few years, and if
if Lake Travis or West Lake is and vander Griff
goes Division one, and you could actually have two Greater
Austin schools played for a football state championship.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Now you could, and you know the ripple effects. And
that's something I just want to touch on briefly for
the folks listening that that don't know that. You know,
you start with District one, and you end with District
thirty two, and we start out west, well again north
of I ten and west of the DFW area. There
(09:49):
are only two districts, three districts. You got two in
l Paso, I'm sorry, one in l Paso and one
in what you know used to be the little Southwest conference.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That is a.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Huge swath of the state. I mean, that's easily a
quarter of the state in terms of geography, and it
only represents two districts. So to fill out Region four,
you get deep into the DFW area. Well, that takes
schools out of what traditionally would be Region two. Now
move to Region one. That ripple effect, as you've been
(10:22):
around the map, is going to bring in the North
Central Texas, Waco Temple, those guys that are having to
go Region two, and then like I said, you go
south and work your way up to eight and it
leaves that northern district in Region three. So the traditional
regions are getting stretched and have been for a few
alignments now, but they continue to be stretched a little
(10:45):
bit more with each alignment because of the relative depopulation
of West Texas and how that ripple effect impacts the
rest of the map.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Jamie, let me get your thoughts on a couple of
headline grabbers, certainly for folks who are looking at it
across the state. First of all, Aledo, a giant in
five a Division one for so many years, finally now
makes the move up to six day and you have
them along with Grand Burry and Weatherford and kind of
an I twenty set up there where you're also having
to work with a northern part of Terrant County where
(11:17):
you have the Northwest schools, you have South Lake Carrol and.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
That comes to mind.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And then the other one that comes to mind for
me is what you have in eleven six A, which
a lot of folks affectionately referred to in the past
as the district of Doom with Duncanville, but De Sota's
dropping the Walks, Atche's still in there with them, and
now you have North Crowley in there.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You have both Crowley schools in there for that.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
So again DFW becomes a Rubik's cube for Todate myself
where you're trying to take. So all of those districts
districts four all the way through District eleven. All of
the df W districts are eighteen districts. So how do
you make all of them eight when you've got five
(12:02):
Arlington's two Crawleys that you can't split again by rule,
the two Crowleys have to be together, the Mansfields have
to be together, and so we try to take that,
throw it in with geography and still try to make
eighteen districts. So you end up with what we have, right,
You've got those west of Fort Worth schools with Weatherford,
(12:23):
Granbury and Alito joining the five Arlingtons, and then you
stay south of that and you've got some Singleton's that
you know. Duncanville's one high school, Dallas Skyline is the
only six A in Dallas ISD that you can kind
of move any direction. But as you look at it,
we had to get what we had to really spend
a lot of time on putting those schools together. We
(12:45):
feel like they're pretty tight geographically. There's a couple of exceptions.
You know, District three and District eleven probably run east
and west further than the rest of them until you
get into Tyler and Longview. That's a whole different scenario.
Nobody in Northeast Texas up those two. So what is
always the case is six A the FW football is
(13:06):
remarkably competitive, and I'm not sure this won't be even
losing some of the powerhouses like the Soto and Cedar
Hill who drop down. This is going to be a
loaded field when football season rolled around.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
No doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Visiting with doctor Jamie Harrison, executive director of the UIO,
a couple more questions about these types of things. In
five A Division two. Here's another headline grabber. Soalina four
a power for so long, moves up there in five
A and in a really good district that doesn't require
a great deal of travel because it has Frisco schools
in it and Dennison in it and Prosper schools. And
(13:41):
then I look at Region four kind of over in
our neck of the woods, where new schools affect things
like not only is Liberty Hill in the district, but
the brand new Liberty Hill School Legacy Ranch is in it.
And not only is new Bronfles in, but the brand
new new Bromfills School Long Creek is in. And the
influx of the new schools, I guess also shakes up
the balance on some of that, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It does. So again, what's different in five A is
when we're talking five A football, we're talking football only, right,
So when you get over the six A map that's
got Tuesday night travel involved to the very different scenario.
This is we can travel one trip every in the
two year period. But when you look at that, so
you look in the San Antonio area and you take
(14:26):
all those San Antonio schools that again by will have
to be together then you have those schools just north
of San Antonio. There's only five of them. Well, you
don't want to give them a five team district. That
would be impossible for them to know when there is
another option. You try to avoid giving them a five
team district because filling their non district schedule becomes such
a challenge. So we've got District twelve in five A
(14:50):
Division two out there with six schools. You got the
two Liberty Hills. What do you do, right? Do you
make an eight team out of that and leave five down?
South ball only travel, So you leave the six and
you find two that you can bring down. You can't
split the Austin's up. That would be bringing three down.
So the two Liberty Hill schools, and again you can't
(15:11):
split them. They've got to come together. So they're going
to have to come down to play those sort of
really Greater San Antonio area North San Antonio area schools,
and that is going to be a killer football district.
The new Liberty Hill High School, I'm sure is going
to be very competitive. Liberty Hill, of course, has a
great history. Bernie and Alamo Heights have been tremendous. That's
(15:31):
Memorial has had some great teams. Now you've got the two,
you know, the Broncos and the Bronpos. Long Creek that
is going to be a bring your hat every night
kind of a district.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
No doubt about it. Before I'll let you go, we
do this.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
We've done this every time when we've done the TV
show in the past. I ask you because a lot
of folks don't understand, or or maybe you're curious about
the appeals process and what you and the staff do.
Because while this realignment was released, this more warning, it
may not be one hundred percent chiseled and granted depending
(16:04):
on the amount of appeals you get and what you
undertake in the process that goes from there.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, so that's great. This alignment doesn't become final until
those both levels of appeals have been completed. The first
level is a local level that we actually don't have
anything to do with. So you go to the district
that we put you in and get a majority vote
from those schools to let you out in this district
you think we should have put you in. You go
(16:31):
to them and get a majority vote to let you in,
and it's done. If you get both majority votes, your
district has changed. We don't. We just make the change
if you're unable to get that dual majority vote. We
do have a state level of appeal. That's a committee
of superintendents who will hear from all of the appealing schools.
And really the driver there is travel, right is there
(16:56):
is your appeal based on mileage, not who you're going
to play when you get there, but how far you
have to travel to get there, and we'll make it.
We'll making the change avoid creating a competitive imbalance somewhere else.
You know, we're not going to put a ten team
district next to a sixteen district, for example. So if
you can keep that competitive balance in terms of numbers
(17:17):
of teams in the district and reduce your travel, you've
got a great appeal at the state level. So you've
got both of those. By the end of the month,
those will be completed and the alignment will be finalized
for football, basketball, and volleyball, and then with that we
have the information we need to put the districts together
for all the other sports.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
How often do you have what the first option that
you talked about, where it gets done at the local level.
Does that happen that I know? Obviously you have at
the state wide level, you have to have the appeals
process go through when they don't have that majority vote.
But do you get it very often where school districts,
like one school says yeah, we'll let you out and
the other one says, yeah, we'll let you in.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
We get it every alignment. It happens. Some alignments there's
three or four changes that come through that method, and
sometimes there's ten or twelve changes based on alignment. But
there's never been an alignment where there's been nine. Right,
there's no local level appeals granted, so we have both
(18:19):
those options. You know, we can run milage reports, we
can look at a map, but that doesn't mean we
know the travel conditions or traffic patterns and those kinds
of things that those folks at the local level know
much better. And so we give them that local option,
and at least a handful of schools every alignment are
able to change their districts based on that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well, I know you've, like I said, got more on
your plate than you can say. Grace over right now,
but I really appreciate you blocking out a.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Few minutes for us this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Congratulations on getting another one done, and good luck as
you get on to that next step with the appeals process.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Jamie, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Thanks for having me. Craig appreciate you covering necessarily as
you do every lignement. You do a great job of
helping folks understand how it works.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Thank you, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
All right, that's doctor Jamie Harrison, the executive director of
the UIL. And for those of you who are still
a little bit quizzical about, you know, who's winding up where,
we'll run it down specific districts. Like I pointed out,
there are three six A districts in the Greater Austin
area and that's the first time. It's the first time
(19:25):
I can remember it happening that way. And doctor Harrison
said the same thing as well, and that's because of
the growth what's happened here in the area and schools
moving up from five A to six A.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There's a trickle down.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So we'll run down the total alignments a little later
on the Other thing we need to run down right
now is to let you know what's coming up up next.
I'll look back at both the Texas men's and women's
basketball victories. We'll have that courtesy of the highlight montage.
We do hav inconceivable this hour, next hour, next hour
(19:59):
brand new members of the iHeartRadio Zone team, but familiar
faces and voices will tell you about that. And then
in the four o'clock hour, Greg Tepper, who is the
editor in chief of Dave Campbells Texas Football Magazine, will
join us, and that's when we'll get also into some
(20:20):
more nuts and bolts on realignment date. It's also Groundhog Day.
The two kind of go hand in hand. It's a Monday.
Glad to have you with us here on Sports Radio
AM thirteen under the zone of the iHeartRadio app.
With that.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's always a very enormous project that the UIL puts together,
headed up by the executive director, doctor Jamie Harrison, who
joins us right now for a few minutes, and that's
why we wanted to jump right in with it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Jamie, I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Have you been able to catch your breath yet, not
only because after all the hard work you and the
staff put together, but all of the feedback that you've
gotten from the member schools all across the state of
Texas following this morning's release.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Craig really appreciate you having me and spend a little
time talking about this. You know how important it is
to the entire state. It's really one of the few
things that visually any state agency can do that touches
every square inch of the two hundred and sixty five
thousand square miles that is Texas. And people are pretty
serious about trophies in our states, so this is a
(00:51):
big deal. We're working on catching our breath. We have
received a lot of feedback, honestly, probably three to one,
maybe four to one positive to negative, But there are
some people who think we missed it. On occasion, certainly
in the general public but generally looking at the map
helps tell the story much better well.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
No doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
And for folks who may be tuning in, and I'm
familiar with the process, you know, the questions you and
I always you know, I always ask of you every year,
even before it, and when we were doing the television
piece of it was folks are asked, why, why is
it necessary to do it? Why is it necessary to
do it every other year? Why not every year or
(01:35):
every three years? What is the rationale behind the biennial
piece of it?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And You've always had a really good explanation for it.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, So there's a number of factors that go into
that one. In a state like ours, schools grow and
get bigger, and some schools lose kids and get smaller,
and so doing it every two years accounts better for
those changes in enrollment than if we were to do
it in a you know, on a longer basis than
two years. And then, of course football is pretty important
(02:08):
in the state of Texas, and it works out really
well for scheduling for football. If you do an every
year thing, you don't get to home and home return
game that you get on a two year basis, So
you do it on a two year basis. We play
at my place this year, we played at your place
next year. Now we're all square, it's time to do
it again.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Let me get your thoughts on the challenges this year,
because you had, by my count I think it was
something like nineteen schools moving up from five A to
six A. You had about as many moving down somewhere
in that neighborhood. And then you have the ones who
elevated by request as well, those who wanted to remain
as six A schools rather than drop to five A. Although
(02:50):
I know across the state the ripples are going there.
Everybody sees the perennial giant Desta accepted its five A
enrollment and decided not to opt up this year. But
how about your thoughts on the challenges this year, what
you faced with the schools, not only the ones that
were moving up five A to six A, but the
ripple effect that caused in districts and.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Regions and with these schools.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
So I'll give you a what I would call a
relative short answer, because we could talk for six hours
on that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So, you know, each map, meaning it's each conference kind
of brings with it. It's its own challenges. But when
you're looking at the largest conferences six A and five A,
because schools are so aggregated in Austin, San Antonio, Houston,
and DFW, any schools who aren't in those areas become outliers,
and so it becomes a real challenge to try to
(03:44):
get everybody into a district and still try to balance
the size of districts in terms of numbers of teams
that are that are in those districts. You know, you
know the geography of Texas as well as anybody I've
ever met because of all of your travels with high
school football. Just think with me, the four schools on
the Permian Basin in Midland and Odessa, and then out
(04:05):
in the Concho Valley in San Angelo, the remaining schools
from what forever was known as the Little Southwest Conference.
There's those five to their north, there are zero six
A schools left in Texas. Zero To their west, you
go all the way to El Paso before you get
to a six day school. To their south, you go
(04:26):
all the way to Del Rio, and to their east
you go all the way to Grandburry and Weatherford. So
that creates some real challenges when trying to put the
map together. And then you know, there are some other
district options that create additional creativity opportunities on some maps,
but limit your chances at putting districts together on others.
(04:47):
For example, in five A and Division one, Houston Iceedy
opted all their schools up to Division one, fort Worth
icety opted all their schools up to Division one. As
you know, on a division map you only have sixteen districts. Well,
that takes two districts off the board, right, those two
get their own districts because of how many schools they have,
But on the corresponding division two maps, it leaves no district.
(05:10):
Now for the first time, thinking anybody can remember on
the six A map there's not a Houston ISD district.
They just don't. They don't have enough schools to have
Houston ID six A district. So it really changes things
trying to piece together what a lot of folks in
the general public don't know that. You know, schools in
the same ISD. By rule have to be put in
(05:32):
the same district. And so when you get into DFW
or Austin and you get you know, Leander now has
five six A schools in division I mean in six A,
round Rock hats five. Those have to be together. Each
of those set the five, so we've got to find
two or three to go with them. So you've got
(05:53):
an I with four and I with three and I
with seven, and you're trying to piece that together to
make around eighteen district. It gets a real challenge. And
with those schools coming up, I mean, I know you're
here in Austin, you're talking about the whole state, but
specific to Central Texas. The Central Texas landscape changed dramatically
with those Leander schools coming up to six A. That
(06:13):
changes the map quite a bit in six A, and
then that just trickles down into what happens with five day.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That's where I was going next because of Cedar Park,
Leander Rals, and Eastview all moving up to six A.
This I've looked at it and I said, Okay, there's
a ripple effect. Now the round Rock schools and the
Leanders schools aren't in the same district for the first
time that I remember in a while. Not only that,
(06:41):
and maybe you can answer this question for me, Jamie,
When is the last time that the Greater Austin area
had three full six A districts. I'm racking my brain
trying to remember this, because here it is. In District
twenty four, you got Van der Griff, you got Cedar Park,
you got Vista Ridge, Eastview, Huddo, Leander and Raws. And
then you jumped twenty five you got Lake Travis, Westlake
(07:02):
and the five Round Rock schools.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And then you have a separate.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
District in twenty six with the AISD schools Austin High, Aikins,
and Bowie, along with Hayes moving up you to Johnsondale
Valley and Dripping Springs. I got to believe the AISD
schools are dancing in the streets today because of not
having to begin.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
With what's lake in Lake Travis?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
But can you remember the last time this area had
six highest classification districts three high's classification districts?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Honestly I can't, And the answer is because I can't remember.
I mean, if you just go from Georgetown North down
to Butta South, there's twenty one schools in six A.
We've just not had that in Central Texas and quite
some time. With twenty one, that can't be two districts, right,
I mean, we tried really hard to avoid making ten
(07:55):
team districts. We can by rule, but it's not a
good idea. We can't make more than ten by rule.
So when you get twenty one, that's going to be
three districts. And so again, when you look at the
puzzle pieces, with round Rock having this many and Leander
having that many that you can't split up. You got
to figure out how to make that work. So we
(08:15):
were able to find three sevens and balance that out.
But that extra district means one of those Central Texas
schools is going to Region three. Because you've got two
districts in the Rio Grand Valley, you only have eight
in a region. So so Region four eight districts with two
in the Rio Grand Valley, and then working your way
up you get to eight before you get to that
(08:38):
northernmost Central Texas district.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, which, by the way, for folks who want a
little more clarity on what that means, that means it
is now mathematically possible for say, Vandergrift to play Westlake
for a state championship or Vandergrift to play Lake Travis
for a state championship in football, depending on the enrollment
in which divisions they go.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I'm always curious.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
About about that cusp, that that that separator between regions
UH two and three and three and four, and when
we've had it in the Greater Houston area for a
long long time, and obviously in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
But now I think Austin folks could look.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
At that and say, wow, if vander Grift is as
good as they've been the last few years, and if
if Lake Travis or West Lake is and vander Griff
goes Division one, and you could actually have two Greater
Austin schools played for a football state championship.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Now you could, and you know the ripple effects. And
that's something I just want to touch on briefly for
the folks listening that that don't know that. You know,
you start with District one, and you end with District
thirty two, and we start out west, well again north
of I ten and west of the DFW area. There
(09:49):
are only two districts, three districts. You got two in
l Paso, I'm sorry, one in l Paso and one
in what you know used to be the little Southwest conference.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That is a.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Huge swath of the state. I mean, that's easily a
quarter of the state in terms of geography, and it
only represents two districts. So to fill out Region four,
you get deep into the DFW area. Well, that takes
schools out of what traditionally would be Region two. Now
move to Region one. That ripple effect, as you've been
(10:22):
around the map, is going to bring in the North
Central Texas, Waco Temple, those guys that are having to
go Region two, and then like I said, you go
south and work your way up to eight and it
leaves that northern district in Region three. So the traditional
regions are getting stretched and have been for a few
alignments now, but they continue to be stretched a little
(10:45):
bit more with each alignment because of the relative depopulation
of West Texas and how that ripple effect impacts the
rest of the map.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Jamie, let me get your thoughts on a couple of
headline grabbers, certainly for folks who are looking at it
across the state. First of all, Aledo, a giant in
five a Division one for so many years, finally now
makes the move up to six day and you have
them along with Grand Burry and Weatherford and kind of
an I twenty set up there where you're also having
to work with a northern part of Terrant County where
(11:17):
you have the Northwest schools, you have South Lake Carrol and.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
That comes to mind.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And then the other one that comes to mind for
me is what you have in eleven six A, which
a lot of folks affectionately referred to in the past
as the district of Doom with Duncanville, but De Sota's
dropping the Walks, Atche's still in there with them, and
now you have North Crowley in there.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You have both Crowley schools in there for that.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
So again DFW becomes a Rubik's cube for Todate myself
where you're trying to take. So all of those districts
districts four all the way through District eleven. All of
the df W districts are eighteen districts. So how do
you make all of them eight when you've got five
(12:02):
Arlington's two Crawleys that you can't split again by rule,
the two Crowleys have to be together, the Mansfields have
to be together, and so we try to take that,
throw it in with geography and still try to make
eighteen districts. So you end up with what we have, right,
You've got those west of Fort Worth schools with Weatherford,
(12:23):
Granbury and Alito joining the five Arlingtons, and then you
stay south of that and you've got some Singleton's that
you know. Duncanville's one high school, Dallas Skyline is the
only six A in Dallas ISD that you can kind
of move any direction. But as you look at it,
we had to get what we had to really spend
a lot of time on putting those schools together. We
(12:45):
feel like they're pretty tight geographically. There's a couple of exceptions.
You know, District three and District eleven probably run east
and west further than the rest of them until you
get into Tyler and Longview. That's a whole different scenario.
Nobody in Northeast Texas up those two. So what is
always the case is six A the FW football is
(13:06):
remarkably competitive, and I'm not sure this won't be even
losing some of the powerhouses like the Soto and Cedar
Hill who drop down. This is going to be a
loaded field when football season rolled around.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
No doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Visiting with doctor Jamie Harrison, executive director of the UIO,
a couple more questions about these types of things. In
five A Division two. Here's another headline grabber. Soalina four
a power for so long, moves up there in five
A and in a really good district that doesn't require
a great deal of travel because it has Frisco schools
in it and Dennison in it and Prosper schools. And
(13:41):
then I look at Region four kind of over in
our neck of the woods, where new schools affect things
like not only is Liberty Hill in the district, but
the brand new Liberty Hill School Legacy Ranch is in it.
And not only is new Bronfles in, but the brand
new new Bromfills School Long Creek is in. And the
influx of the new schools, I guess also shakes up
the balance on some of that, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It does. So again, what's different in five A is
when we're talking five A football, we're talking football only, right,
So when you get over the six A map that's
got Tuesday night travel involved to the very different scenario.
This is we can travel one trip every in the
two year period. But when you look at that, so
you look in the San Antonio area and you take
(14:26):
all those San Antonio schools that again by will have
to be together then you have those schools just north
of San Antonio. There's only five of them. Well, you
don't want to give them a five team district. That
would be impossible for them to know when there is
another option. You try to avoid giving them a five
team district because filling their non district schedule becomes such
a challenge. So we've got District twelve in five A
(14:50):
Division two out there with six schools. You got the
two Liberty Hills. What do you do, right? Do you
make an eight team out of that and leave five down?
South ball only travel, So you leave the six and
you find two that you can bring down. You can't
split the Austin's up. That would be bringing three down.
So the two Liberty Hill schools, and again you can't
(15:11):
split them. They've got to come together. So they're going
to have to come down to play those sort of
really Greater San Antonio area North San Antonio area schools,
and that is going to be a killer football district.
The new Liberty Hill High School, I'm sure is going
to be very competitive. Liberty Hill, of course, has a
great history. Bernie and Alamo Heights have been tremendous. That's
(15:31):
Memorial has had some great teams. Now you've got the two,
you know, the Broncos and the Bronpos. Long Creek that
is going to be a bring your hat every night
kind of a district.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
No doubt about it. Before I'll let you go, we
do this.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
We've done this every time when we've done the TV
show in the past. I ask you because a lot
of folks don't understand, or or maybe you're curious about
the appeals process and what you and the staff do.
Because while this realignment was released, this more warning, it
may not be one hundred percent chiseled and granted depending
(16:04):
on the amount of appeals you get and what you
undertake in the process that goes from there.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, so that's great. This alignment doesn't become final until
those both levels of appeals have been completed. The first
level is a local level that we actually don't have
anything to do with. So you go to the district
that we put you in and get a majority vote
from those schools to let you out in this district
you think we should have put you in. You go
(16:31):
to them and get a majority vote to let you in,
and it's done. If you get both majority votes, your
district has changed. We don't. We just make the change
if you're unable to get that dual majority vote. We
do have a state level of appeal. That's a committee
of superintendents who will hear from all of the appealing schools.
And really the driver there is travel, right is there
(16:56):
is your appeal based on mileage, not who you're going
to play when you get there, but how far you
have to travel to get there, and we'll make it.
We'll making the change avoid creating a competitive imbalance somewhere else.
You know, we're not going to put a ten team
district next to a sixteen district, for example. So if
you can keep that competitive balance in terms of numbers
(17:17):
of teams in the district and reduce your travel, you've
got a great appeal at the state level. So you've
got both of those. By the end of the month,
those will be completed and the alignment will be finalized
for football, basketball, and volleyball, and then with that we
have the information we need to put the districts together
for all the other sports.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
How often do you have what the first option that
you talked about, where it gets done at the local level.
Does that happen that I know? Obviously you have at
the state wide level, you have to have the appeals
process go through when they don't have that majority vote.
But do you get it very often where school districts,
like one school says yeah, we'll let you out and
the other one says, yeah, we'll let you in.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
We get it every alignment. It happens. Some alignments there's
three or four changes that come through that method, and
sometimes there's ten or twelve changes based on alignment. But
there's never been an alignment where there's been nine. Right,
there's no local level appeals granted, so we have both
(18:19):
those options. You know, we can run milage reports, we
can look at a map, but that doesn't mean we
know the travel conditions or traffic patterns and those kinds
of things that those folks at the local level know
much better. And so we give them that local option,
and at least a handful of schools every alignment are
able to change their districts based on that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well, I know you've, like I said, got more on
your plate than you can say. Grace over right now,
but I really appreciate you blocking out a.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Few minutes for us this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Congratulations on getting another one done, and good luck as
you get on to that next step with the appeals process.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Jamie, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Thanks for having me. Craig appreciate you covering necessarily as
you do every lignement. You do a great job of
helping folks understand how it works.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Thank you, Jamie.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
All right, that's doctor Jamie Harrison, the executive director of
the UIL. And for those of you who are still
a little bit quizzical about, you know, who's winding up where,
we'll run it down specific districts. Like I pointed out,
there are three six A districts in the Greater Austin
area and that's the first time. It's the first time
(19:25):
I can remember it happening that way. And doctor Harrison
said the same thing as well, and that's because of
the growth what's happened here in the area and schools
moving up from five A to six A.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There's a trickle down.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So we'll run down the total alignments a little later
on the Other thing we need to run down right
now is to let you know what's coming up up next.
I'll look back at both the Texas men's and women's
basketball victories. We'll have that courtesy of the highlight montage.
We do hav inconceivable this hour, next hour, next hour
(19:59):
brand new members of the iHeartRadio Zone team, but familiar
faces and voices will tell you about that. And then
in the four o'clock hour, Greg Tepper, who is the
editor in chief of Dave Campbells Texas Football Magazine, will
join us, and that's when we'll get also into some
(20:20):
more nuts and bolts on realignment date. It's also Groundhog Day.
The two kind of go hand in hand. It's a Monday.
Glad to have you with us here on Sports Radio
AM thirteen under the zone of the iHeartRadio app.
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