Church vs State

[Andy]

Since nobody has mentioned Arizona yet, I will chime in.

Private Schools can join the Arizona Interscolastic Association, by applying and meeting the requirements. Schools are placed in a classification by enrollment size every two years and are allowed to petition to be moved up or down.

There is one small catholic school in Phoenix that routinely petitions up to the highest classification (5A, division 1) in all sports every time. They have been very successful, winning several state titles in football, basketball, and baseball over the last several years.

The big issue that is going on now is in the 2A class. Most of the private schools in the metro Phoenix and Tucson areas are placed in 2A due to student enrollment. Most of the public schools in this class are from small town, rural areas. A great majority of the state championships in this class have been won by the metro area private schools in the last few years. The public schools are complaining that the metro schoos have more population to draw from, better opportunities for outside training, more athletes being able to "specialize" in a single sport, etc...

The public schools are pushing for seperate state championships for the public and private schools in this class. It will be interesting to see how this plays out....