Starting July 2025, Macon Early College and Bartram Academy students will no longer be able to participate in Franklin High School athletics, following a unanimous vote by the Macon County Board of Education at its June 27 meeting.
“Beginning in the [2025]-26 school year, students will play athletics in the school in which they are enrolled,” board member Stephanie Laseter said in a motion.
“I will say I never wanted it to come to this, but here we are,” board Chair Jim Breedlove said before calling for the vote.
The decision comes after fears that the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s (NCHSAA) new realignment model would force Franklin High School to play in a geographically far-flung conference with schools past Asheville and Henderson County.
With Macon Early College students allowed to compete in FHS sports, the school’s roughly 130 students count toward Franklin High School for NCHSAA realignment purposes, even if no MEC students participate. This past school year, around 25 MEC students participated in FHS athletics. No Bartram students competed in FHS athletics this past school year.
The school board hopes barring MEC and Bartram students will keep Franklin High in a lower classification with easier travel requirements and competition.
Neither MEC nor Bartram are NCHSAA members and don’t field athletic teams. The school board discussed the possibility of either school applying for NCHSAA membership by October and fielding teams in 2025-26, if there’s sufficient interest. There was a brief discussion about athletics facilities for those teams, specifically basketball.
Macon Early College students were allowed to play for Franklin High School starting in the 2022-23 school year. At that time, FHS’s ADM numbers placed it near the middle of the 3A classification, so adding MEC’s ADM didn’t change the classification.
In November 2023, the North Carolina High School Athletics Association finalized changing its athletics structure from four classifications (1A through 4A) to eight (1A through 8A), starting in 2025-26. Previously, over 75% of the 436 NCHSAA members (four more joined in 2024-25) voted to limit each classification to 64 schools.
Todd Gibbs, the school system’s athletics director, told the board that Macon Early College and Bartram Academy students could participate in Franklin High sports in 2024-25 and submit an ADM that only includes FHS students if MEC or Bartram students are barred from FHS sports starting in 2025-26.
Breedlove recommended deciding before MEC registration starts later this summer, so kids and parents have a year to plan. Breedlove said he didn’t like having more information. Laseter equated the decision to reading tea leaves for the future.
Gibbs said there’s a possibility for conferences with schools from three different classifications. Currently, there are numerous conferences with schools from two different classifications. FHS Principal Blair King pointed out that in a higher classification, FHS would struggle to compete against certain schools.
Gibbs said NCHSAA Commissioner Que Tucker told Macon County Schools officials in a Zoom call they would not be put in a far-flung conference and would only potentially travel far in the playoffs. Gibbs was previously principal of Macon Early College when MEC students were barred from playing for FHS, after an FHS team beat the eventual 2A state champions who happened to be from their conference but lost in the 3A state playoffs. At the time, no MEC students competed for FHS athletic teams, but the Early College ADM pushed FHS from 2A into 3A.
Current projections have FHS going into 6A in the new eight-classification system. That’s a moving target due to the 2025-26 realignment based on each school’s enrollment in the first 20 days of the 2024-25 school year. Based on the 2024 end-of-year ADM, at 1,274 students, FHS would be roughly 85 students above the 5A/6A cutoff. Every other Mountain Seven Conference team would be in either 5A (West Henderson, North Henderson and East Henderson) or 4A (Tuscola, Pisgah, Smoky Mountain), according to those 2024 numbers.
This past spring, the NCHSAA approved the “Big 32” realignment model, where the 32 largest schools in the state will be in 8A, and the remaining seven classifications will be equally divided.