Starting next school year, Texas high schools will have new district classifications. While Chisholm Trail is classified as a 4A school this year, next school year its classification will change to 5A.

A school’s classification is based on its population. The higher a school’s population, the higher the school’s classification will be.

In this year and in previous years, the highest classification a school could have was 5A. Next year, the highest classification will be 6A.

The purpose of the reclassification is to have schools be more evenly distributed within the classifications.

With the new classifications have come concerns about what that will mean for sports teams, fine arts, and academic UIL.

“The teams will be more evenly matched than they were this past year,” said Basketball Coach Joe Barnett. He said that sports teams will only compete against six teams next year compared to the nine teams they played against this year.

Baseball Coach Juan Silva has voiced concerns about how next year’s baseball season will go.

“We’re in the Fort Worth district right now, and some of them aren’t great at baseball so we have some nights where we know we’re going to win,” Silva said. “We’re going into a district where we’re not going to have games like that. It’s probably one of the toughest districts in the state that we’re going into.”

It’s not just the coaches who are aware of the new teams they’ll play next year.

Varsity Baseball team member Colby Craver said that although the team focused more on the moment last year, they’re shifting their attention to the long term aspects of the game.

“We are focusing on doing the little things right,” Craver said.

Some members of the Ranger Regiment have also been confused about whether they will compete in their marching contest next year due to the school’s change to 5A status.

Normally, they compete every other year and the Ranger Regiment went to the Area Marching Contest for 4A schools this year. The current 4A schools wouldn’t compete next year.

“Next year was supposed to be a 5A state year, so [with the changes] it will be a 6A state year,” Canfield said. “The same schools that were going to participate are still going to participate.”

When the reclassification takes effect next year, the marching contest will continue to alternate as it did and the same schools will compete. The only change will be the name of the classifications.

Jacy Canfield, current Junior and drum major, was disappointed to know that she wouldn’t compete next year with a last chance at the contest before she graduates.

“I’m sad because now we can’t go to state,” Canfield said, “And that’s the biggest honor.”

As well as affecting sports teams and band, Chisholm’s jump to 5A will affect Academic UIL competitions.

Journalism UIL coach Rhonda Dickens said that next year UIL teams will compete against different schools with more established journalism programs.

Dickens said that the Fort Worth schools they currently compete against bring few competitors to the journalism UIL events.

“Wichita Falls has traditions in journalism, so they’ll bring in more competition,” she said.

Math UIL adviser Fred Krause is looking forward to next year’s change in competition because the math team is improving. He doesn’t think the district change will hurt the team at all.

Krause said, “As a team we went from not even placing to taking second in our division in one year, so I think it’s getting better and better.”