Franklin’s athletic conference might not change very much after all.
Ahead of its quadrennial realignment starting next school year, on Dec. 18, the N.C. High School Athletic Association released the first draft of its proposed athletic conferences for the next four years. With just one “new” school – Brevard – added to the current Mountain Seven, Franklin’s proposed new conference could look quite familiar to fans.
After last year’s vote to divide its four current classifications into eight, last month the NCHSAA released their official realignment structure. The list, based on each school’s Average Daily Membership for 2024 – the number of students attending class through the school year’s first 20 days – sorted Franklin and current M7 rivals Smoky Mountain, North Henderson and West Henderson from the current 3A classification into the new 5A, which includes schools ranging in ADM from 956 to 1,205. The rest of the Mountain Seven – East Henderson, Pisgah and Tuscola – reported slightly smaller ADMs and were sorted into 4A along with Brevard, which is currently 2A. While all eight teams will vie for the same conference titles, they will compete in separate state playoff brackets according to classification.
By combining all eight together in a proposed 4A/5A split conference, the draft realignment comes as a surprise for some that thought Franklin might join a conference with Enka, Erwin and North Buncombe, who were also sorted into 5A. Those schools joined A.C. Reynolds, Asheville and T.C. Roberson in a proposed 5A/6A conference, which would also be nearly identical to their current conference. Brevard would rejoin Franklin, Pisgah, East and Smoky, its rivals in the old Mountain Six from 2017-21, after four years in the current Mountain Foothills Conference.
Franklin’s realignment ADM, 1,010, does not include students from Macon Early College, Bartram Academy or the Macon Virtual Academy, who have been allowed to compete for Franklin since December 2021. Following a decision this June of the Macon County Board of Education, MEC students will again be barred from competing for Franklin next school year, in an effort to keep Franklin from being moved to a higher classification. Earlier this year, Bartram Academy principal Brian Moffitt said Bartram students would no longer be allowed to compete.
Because MEC/Bartram/MVA athletes were eligible to play for Franklin last year, their combined ADM of roughly 250 were included in Franklin’s total, just under 1,300. If allowed to continue competing for Franklin, the MEC and MVA ADMs likely would have bumped Franklin up into the new 6A, necessitating tougher competition and further travel. In recent months Macon County Schools officials have discussed the possibility of MEC fielding its own athletic teams.
Elsewhere in Macon County, Nantahala and Highlands’ Smoky Mountain 1A Conference will also stay largely unchanged. The conference’s current members joined Summit Charter and Rosman in a proposed 1A/2A conference, with Cherokee, Hayesville, Murphy and Swain moving up to the new 2A. Schools now have a chance to contest the proposed new conferences ahead of final approval early next year.