Key takeaways from year one of NCHSAA's eight classifications

Let’s take a deeper dive into the first school year with the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s expanded eight classifications.

2025-26 was the first school year with eight classifications. The NCHSAA conducted championships with four classes for a half-century prior to that.

As documented earlier this week, the share of N.C. High School Athletic Association state championships won by non-traditional public schools slightly increased with the expansion to eight classifications. Since that was published, I found some more information that should interest our readers.

Non-traditional schools hit record share of NCHSAA titles

Combining all state championships, 29.4% were won by non-traditional schools, including charters, parochials, and UNC system schools. The percentage broke last year’s record of 27.6%. Keep in mind, non-traditional schools represent roughly 15.5% of the NCHSAA’s total membership.

The big difference with the realignment of schools into the eight classes was the change to an ADM-only sorting process. ADM stands for average daily membership, which basically means the size of the student body. The NCHSAA membership voted for this change as a part of the larger adjustment to Bylaw VI.

For the previous realignment, used from 2021-25, the NCHSAA implemented a nationally unique formula.

The formula took into account three factors: the ADMs, a three-year average of State Cup scores, and a three-year average of Individual Student Percentages, or ISP. The ISP data shows the percentage of students who receive some form of government assistance. The association removed the highest ISP data point for each school to account for a few anomalies related to natural disasters.

Essentially, the realignment formula was implemented to send the extraordinarily successful and wealthy schools to a higher classification, in hopes of creating more equal competition.

Without the formula, public schools and non-traditional schools with similar headcounts are pitted against one another. In other words, the new ADM-only requirement does not account for any advantage non-traditional schools might have over boundary-capped public schools.

The 2025-26 NCHSAA state champions in every sport

With the doubling of the classifications from four to eight, state championship opportunities were effectively doubled. Proponents of the eight classifications pushed for it for this reason.

Beyond the championships themselves, many programs broke playoff appearance droughts that had lasted for decades. This was in large part a result of the expanded playoff brackets, which saw up to 48 teams make the postseason in seven of the classifications. We also know that the NCHSAA netted significantly more money this year from postseason gates than it did last year, but choosing cheaper facilities also helped that. We’re hoping to get our hands on the NCHSAA financials from the past school year so we can go in-depth into those numbers.

In year one, 75 programs won a state championship for the first time in their history. These programs made up 42.1% of the 178 total state champion teams.

Of those 75 first-time winners, 27 belong to non-traditional schools, or 36%. Again, remember that non-traditional schools are 15.5% of the NCHSAA membership.

Only five schools won a state championship of any kind for the first time: NC Leadership Academy, Queen's Grant, Roxboro Community, Vance Charter, and Woods Charter. All five are charter schools.

The two classifications in which traditional public schools made the biggest headway were 8A and 5A, which, non-coincidentally, are the two largest classes with no non-traditional schools. 24 of the first-time champion teams came from those two classes.

Besides the first-time champion programs, there was a large group of teams that ended long-term droughts. Think Watauga football, Goldsboro girls basketball, and North Mecklenburg girls basketball. Some historically good programs that had not won a title in a minute, such as Charlotte Catholic’s lacrosse teams and Crest football, broke through to add another banner to their collections.

Of the 12 schools that won a state championship in 8A, 11 were in the previous 4A classification. West Charlotte, which won the boys basketball title, was previously in 3A. In 7A, of the 12 schools that won a state championship, again, 11 were from the old 4A class. The outlier was Southern Durham, which was previously in 3A.

15 schools won a state championship in the new 6A classification. Of those 15, nine were in 3A from 2021-25, and six were in 4A.

Interestingly, all 13 schools that won a 5A state championship in 2025-26 were previously in the 3A classification. These schools seemed to take advantage of being separated from the upper half of 3A, which is basically now 6A. Of the 23 championship teams in 5A, 14 were a first-time title for a program.

The new 4A classification had the widest mixture of schools winning their state championships. Seven of the 12 champion schools came from the old 2A, while four came from the old 3A, and one, Uwharrie Charter, came from the old 1A. Similar to West Charlotte, Uwharrie Charter saw a large growth in enrollment since the 2021-25 realignment cycle went into place.

12 of the 13 schools in the new 3A classification that won a state championship came from the old 2A class. Like the old 3A schools in 5A, these schools seemed to take advantage of being split up from the upper half of the old, larger 2A.

In the new 2A classification, nine of the 14 schools with a state championship plaque came from the old 1A class. Notably, five of the championship schools more or less dropped down from the old 2A class into this one. Five old 2A schools won a state championship this year: Community School of Davidson, Christ the King, Manteo, Raleigh Charter, and Research Triangle. All of those schools were previously boosted up a class by the realignment formula.

The nine schools that won a state championship in the new, smaller 1A classification were each a part of the old 1A class last cycle. The biggest thing to highlight with the new 1A is the strength of its charter schools: seven of nine institutions that won a championship were charter schools. Only Robbinsville and Northside-Pinetown won a title among the traditional schools in the new 1A.

Running sports saw the most first-time champions. Six of the 10 schools that won a boys outdoor track championship did so for the first time. Four of the state champions in boys indoor track and boys cross country were first-time victors as well. Five of the eight girls outoor track state champions were fresh as well. Three were first-time champions in girls indoor track.

Girls golf and girls tennis were the other big sports for first-time champions. Half of the state champions in those classes, four each, were first-time title winners.

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