By Bill Weaver
Mary Persons High School may not see itself as a victim, but in a competitive sort of way it’s a victim of its own success.
As Monroe County’s school enrollment continues to grow, many of its neighboring schools are stagnating or declining. Most of the Bibb County public schools are getting smaller. So is Jackson High School, and so is Pike County High School.
Monroe schools are a “victim” of going up in enrollment, not down.
As a result, parents and fans who like to follow Mary Persons athletics and performing arts competitions are in for some long drives over the next two years to unfamiliar places like LaGrange and Fayetteville.
As school enrollments in districts grow or shrink due to population shifts, the Georgia High School Association biennially reexamines region alignments. The goal is to create regions of roughly equal size so Samson-sized schools don’t have to compete against the Goliaths. Another goal is to group schools with neighbors to reduce time and distances for traveling to competitions.
But sometimes goals can’t be met.
Following the most recent GHSA reclassification, Mary Persons finds itself with only two neighbors in Region 2 of the Class AAA-sized schools – Spalding County and Upson-Lee. Regrettably, five of the nine schools in the new region are in either Fayette or Troup counties, which are one-way drives of 60 or 90 minutes, respectively.
Monroe County Superintendent Dr. Jim Finch, who in April was elected to his second two-year term as president of the GHSA, admitted that MP buses and parents will burn more gas to follow their teams in 2024-26.
“Yes, for Mary Persons we are going to end up traveling more,” he said. He doesn’t like that, but not all of the GHSA’s 458 schools get what they want in realignments.
“A lot of people think … that I can gerrymander our regions. That’s something I don’t do,” he said. “I don’t provide that type of influence over any region, much less the one my most favorite school is in.”
GHSA committees do much of the reclassification work. After initial assignments are made, districts can appeal to be moved up or down in classes. And there’s a “multiplier” in play that attempts to equalize schools that permit students to attend even if the students live outside the school’s zone. In short, it’s a complicated process.
That’s all well and good, but how did Mary Persons wind up in the same region with schools more than 70 miles away?
Finch said Troup County, LaGrange, Fayette County and Whitewater were all “small” AAAA schools last year, but as the GHSA reduced the number of classes from seven to six, those schools were pushed down into the AAA group and now are “large” AAA schools – all of those four schools are larger than Mary Persons.
And with the likes of the Bibb schools, Jackson and Pike losing enrollment and moving even lower into the AA or A classes, Mary Persons, Upson-Lee and Spalding found themselves in unfamiliar territory.
Facing larger schools in Mary Persons’ AAA region might be seen by some coaches and program directors as challenging, but Finch looks at it differently.
Playing bigger schools “is going to make Mary Persons athletics and GHSA activities a lot stronger,” Finch said. “And you know what? As much as I’ve heard people complain about, ‘We’ve gotta play this team,’ those folks complain about playing Mary Persons, too. They don’t want to play Mary Persons, trust me.”
