East Valley Ponders Move To Gsl Ranks

Two years ago, East Valley High began preparing itself to move from the Frontier League to the Greater Spokane League for the 1997-98 activities season.

Then the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association added another enrollment classification which has created a minor hangup.

The Knights can prolong their Frontier League stay for two years because school enrollment currently - if only temporarily - falls under new 3A guidelines.

On Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the East Valley High commons, school district administrators will conduct a parental informational meeting to discuss reclassification options.

“We’ll explain the new classification numbers, what it means to EV and ask for input,” said superintendent Chuck Stocker.

The question to be answered is should EV, with a present enrollment of 1,162 students (39 under the new 4A category), make the move into the GSL next year? That league has opted for 4A status.

Stocker said that within two years East Valley’s enrollment will top the 1,201 mark for three grades.

“We’ll probably have to go in two years anyway and have been preparing for it,” he said. “Why not go into the GSL right away?”

It is a move that Stocker has said he prefers, but most coaches at East Valley are reluctant to make any sooner than necessary.

Football coach Jim Clements said it was his understanding that flat enrollment could mean that EV would fall under 1,200 students a few years down the road.

“That is absolutely correct, what Jim says,” said Stocker. “But that is what we know in the present not the future.”

Tuesday’s meeting, said EV athletic director Karen Gilmore, is the first such community gathering to discuss the issue.

Following it, coaches and administration will get together and develop a final recommendation to be voted on by school board members, tentatively at their Nov. 12 meeting.

Last April, it was recommended by Frontier officials to keep the seven-team league intact for the short term.

The Knights are an upper division Frontier League football team, have won both boys and girls cross country and are on the verge of a volleyball championship this year. But the school has not in years past been a dominant Frontier sports power.

What East Valley decides will impact the remainder of the Frontier League. That conference will be fragmented by the new enrollment alignment that includes a 3A classification for schools with enrollments of 601-1,200 students, and 2A classification for schools with enrollments of 301-600 students.

“Officials are leaning more on keeping the Frontier League together,” said Gilmore. “Whoever’s left would do some general scheduling with other leagues and Idaho schools.”

, DataTimes