The data that decides where Tennessee’s high school athletic programs will be classified for the next two-year cycle is now public knowledge.
What isn’t known yet is the decision by some of the schools most affected by their potential move in classification.
The TSSAA has released enrollment numbers for all member schools, with Oct. 2 the deadline for informing the governing body for prep sports in the state whether a school will accept where it is classified for the next cycle — the 2027-28 and 2028-29 school years — or choose to remove itself from region play.
The biggest controversy in the days leading up to the release of enrollments has revolved around private schools and which of those would be placed in Division II-AAA, the classification for the largest private schools. Any program that chooses to play a nonregion schedule would automatically disqualify itself from eligibility for the state playoffs in that sport.
The only Division II member in the Chattanooga area that would be moved up is Chattanooga Christian School, which has competed in the class for mid-sized private schools since 2017. Although no official decision has been reached by the school’s administration, indications have been that the Chargers would choose to play an independent schedule for at least the next two seasons rather than join DII-AAA.