STA 62
Atlantic Delray
Lake Mary
Edgewater
Sanford Seminole
Bolles
St Augustine
Kissimmee Osceola
Port Charlotte
Alonso
Miami Palmetto
Florida High
Jax TC
Wiregrass Ranch
Apopka
STA - 52 points
Atlantic Delray
Bishop Moore
Edgewater
Sanford Seminole
Bolles
St Augustine
Kissimmee Osceola
Port Charlotte
Berkeley Prep
Miami Palmetto
Florida High
TC
Wiregrass Ranch
Apopka
Chaminade - 73 Points
Atlantic Delray
Lake Mary
Boone
Booker
Bolles
St Augustine
Lakewood
Port Charlotte
Alonso
Miami Palmetto
Mosley
Jax TC
Wiregrass Ranch
Apopka
I don't care what we call the classifications, but the goal (at least in this thread) is to create competitive games. I don't think they're loser divisions. They are competitively balanced classifications. Call them 2A Champions, Silver, or Platinum, but the goal remains that classifications based purely on size don't work.
Coaches currently don't love an OPEN division because it happens after the regular season. In other words, you have a great season, have high hopes of making it the final four for the first time in 25+ seasons, and now you are playing Chaminade Madonna and St Thomas Aquinas in Round 1 when you're championship-bound. If you know from the beginning that you will be in the 7A grouping, you have the ability to have realistic expectations of what your season might be.
Yes, districts will be bigger and travel will increase (for 5A and 4A). For 3A and 2A classifications, district travel would decrease because we no longer have to worry about size. A 600-student school and a 2400-student school could both play in the same district, even though they wouldn't have in the past.
And last year's 1-9 team could be 8-2. Schedules change, coaches change. The purpose of using a 4-year average (with reclassifications every 2 years) would be to allow teams to move up or down slowly. The idea that one bad season drops you several classes doesn't sit well. Maybe it was a fluke, perhaps the schedule was more demanding, or maybe it was injuries or graduation. So yeah, if everyone around you is doing well, you might have to drop to become more competitive. Or maybe you are a 5-5 team but have a magical run for 1 season —you wouldn't automatically move. It is a sustained imbalance that would move you up or down, not just one bad season.
The problem with classifying based on transfers is that our wonderful state government doesn't care about transfers; they think transfers are perfectly fine and are great, as they believe in "school choice" at all costs. A system that would punish schools for getting transfers would probably not fly with them. Additionally, not all transfers are equal. If you get the 3rd string sophomore QB from the cross-town rival, he now counts towards that number.
______________
Promotion/Relegation allows schools and communities to choose how committed they are to a sport or how they want to build their team. If a school consistently has net transfers out, that sucks. But at least they play other schools that would also be net negatives. If you are a school that doesn't get transfers, that needs to be ok as well. If a school wants to get 22 transfers in so that they could move up classifications, let them.