North Dakota Preps

Go and watch players stand around, pass the ball for 45 seconds, and see the same old teams win another title.  Yep, the class B tourney is RRREEEAAALLLLL exciting.

Confucious say, "Man who live in past obvious small school administrator."

fbinnd wrote:Go and watch players stand around, pass the ball for 45 seconds, and see the same old teams win another title.  Yep, the class B tourney is RRREEEAAALLLLL exciting.

Confucious say, "Man who live in past obvious small school administrator."

Obviously 6,000+ plus fans enjoy it since class B boys' state basketball is by far and away the biggest  event in the state. It's pretty obvious you aren't fond of class B basketball in ND but don't try to sound like the other 99.9% of the state isn't.

fbinnd wrote:Go and watch players stand around, pass the ball for 45 seconds, and see the same old teams win another title.  Yep, the class B tourney is RRREEEAAALLLLL exciting.

Confucious say, "Man who live in past obvious small school administrator."

2007-Parshall, 2006-Trinity, 2005-New rockford....yea your right its always repeat champions.  sure a few teams get a good streak and go every year but when was the last time there was a repeat champion.  and if you dont think watching small town Parshall beat powerhouse Trinity then you dont like basketball or sports in general....not to mention probably 5% of the teams hold the ball like that, the other 95% a shot clock wouldnt effect to much if any at all

fbinnd wrote:Go and watch players stand around, pass the ball for 45 seconds, and see the same old teams win another title.  Yep, the class B tourney is RRREEEAAALLLLL exciting.

Confucious say, "Man who live in past obvious small school administrator."

I know and talk to quite a few former class A players, and they say their is barley any body their for the state tournament.  I think they said the most at one time that they remember was around 4,000. 

I rememember one year at the dome, their was 11,000 for the championship night for class B.  It seems like every year people go to it, support the smaller communities, and go to watch usually eight good teams play.  I would say its the biggest high school sporting even in the state by far. 

I personally think the B is the best sporting even in ND's history..but I think the 3 class system in inevitable so working on it to make it the best it can be is what they the NDHSAA should be working on...such as the cutoff of enrollment and do all 3 classes have a shot clock? Would the parachiol schools still be in the smallest class because shiloh is under 110 students every year and williston trinity isn't very big either?

If its's based on enrollment, why should public or private schools be treated differently.  I think both school systems use the same counting methods!:D

I do know that some states are looking at the issue of private schools in large towns and moving them up.  In Minnesota when a 1A school is located in the Twin Cities, it is very tough to compete with that.

Even though they only have 300 kids in the school, they are drawing from a pool of  thousands.

at that point i think wouldn't you have to give them the green light to be able to recruit? seems like if they are drawing from that many more people, they should actually be allowed to go out and try to draw from them instead of working with whatever population of kids decide to go to the school.

don't know if that makes sense or not.

but what i'm thinking is that if trinity's (for example) population is already going down, shouldn't they have something in place to allow them to compete with a dhs (as another example) when their population is already 1000 kids (i don't know the actual number, just pulling it out of thin air) smaller?

or is the line being drawn that the state would, in effect, be punishing private schools for being just that: private schools?

that raises an interesting question. seems like the public school system out to help the public schools, to me anyway, but then again i don't really know if a public school board should be helping private schools...i don't know how much cross-work they do together.

anyone from the private school sector wanna weigh in on that?

Do you mean a co-op with DHS and THS?  We do have a co-op with Dickinson for several sports and the relationship between the two systems is good.  We also have a co-op arrangement with New England for football, track and golf and that has helped build a strong relationship between us as well.  As far as co-ops go, I think it  does us (THS)  more good to in-source kids into our program than out-source kids into Dickinson's programs.  In the long run I think it keeps more of our kids in our school buildings...When I lived in Wisconsin, private schools had their own association and held their own tournaments and everything.  That, too has now changed and they have incorporated into one association.  They simply base it on enrollment to determine which division the schools play in. It doesn't matter if the schools are private or public..THEY BOTH USE THE SAME COUNTING METHOD...1..2..3..4..5..ETC...

what i think the first post was talking about was a system that scrapped a school's total enrollment and instead looked at the town where the school was located?

so instead of trinity having 300 kids (or whatever), because they are in a community that has 15k or 16k they are slotted in the same class as dhs because they are both in the same sized community.

and then that gets into the question of a town's drawing population and is the private school group being punished.

Trinity for example is a Catholic school so you'd have to take the "Catholic" population of the city and come up with a factor to make it fair.  Fargo would have to come up with a factor for their Lutheran and Catholic populations in there town.  It seems to complicated and will never happen.  Maybe we should take high school sports for what they are (games) and instead focus on providing a strong education.  To do that we  have to look at how many students are needed in each class to make it economically feasable to keep the doors open.  If the school is too small the building should be closed down .  The taxpayers DESERvE to have their dollars spent wisely.  After all the real small schools will never see their enrollments increase so why are we delaying the inevitable....

yes but w/o being biased shiloh and williston trinity and dickinson trinity would win all the time if there was a 3 class system they already have good programs going and putting williston  against White shield or garrison is going to be williston trinity about 80% of the time it would 'cause more lopsided wins and more repeat trips to the state tournament for private schools.  But putting them in the top division because of where they are located wouldn't be a fair deal either.  People say the private schools could adjust in a couple years.  But jamestown, valley city, Grand Forks Central, and Turtle Mountain haven't had good teams and using the adjusting to the class A theory you think they'd field a good team once every 3 years but I can't remember the last time belcourt, jamestown, and valley city have been to state. 

You don't adjust in a couple of years.  Look at the Bismarck Saint Mary's and Fargo Shanley programs.  Overall they can't compete.  It didn't work for Beulah either.  It comes down simply to enrollment and there is only one way to count heads...

To do that we have to look at how many students are needed in each class to make it economically feasable to keep the doors open. If the school is too small the building should be closed down . The taxpayers DESERvE to have their dollars spent wisely. After all the real small schools will never see their enrollments increase so why are we delaying the inevitable....

If the taxpayers want their money to go to a school in their community, no matter how big or small, then they are spending their money wisely. In these smallers towns the school is the center of the community. When that closes, jobs leave town, people leave town, businesses close, community events dwindle, and eventually the town is gone. That is why people in small towns fight tooth and nail to save there schools. Just because schools have a smaller enrollment doesn't mean they are receiving any less of an education. Why do you think the large schools break their students up into small groups?

It's all economics and wise use of tax dollars. We're trying to save a dinasour. I don't like it, but it's the truth and a trend that can't be reversed....

Yeah, I understand it costs a lot to keep some of the really small schools operating, but if the taxpayers in those communities pass levies to increase their taxes to go directly to their school to keep it going how can you say its ok for the state to shut it down? I can see setting a limit of foundation aid the state spends on certain schools, but if the people in those communities want to put more of their own money to keeping the school open the state should not shut it down.

Scruffy, would you please tell me what size of school or schools you attended. Also, if you have kids in school right now what size of school do they attend?

When I attended school we had around 325 kids in nine through twelve. Today that school is at about 150 kids and in about five years we will be at 125. At that time some tough decisions will have to be made.

When I attended school 10 years or more ago, we had 75 kids in 9-12 and about 250 in the entire school. Now the high school has around 55 kids and about 165 in the whole school total. I now live back in the same town and definitely want my kids to grow up and go through the same school as I did. I do not think it is too small and I think they will receive a better education here than in a larger school. That is why I will fight so the school never closes. Right now there are many schools that don't even have 100 kids total and are still viable money wise, even tho I'm sure it will get harded in the future if enrollment continues to drop.

I think there are plenty of possibilities of coops without having to close schools. There are cases where there needs to be coops just for the sport to continue. Football, even 9 man takes a certain number of kids to make it work. If a school only has a dozen kids that want to participate then the school should try what it can to make that possible.

About three years ago our school did a study and found that anything under 22-24 students per class makes it tough to "pencil out" a high school. Those numbers are lower of course for elementary and junior high because of fewer "electives" that need to be offered. That's the main reason why several smaller schools in our area now take elective courses through us. They can't afford or find anyone to teach their elective courses...

I would say almost half of the schools in ND don't have 22-24 kids in a class anymore. That's roughly 280-300 students in the entire school. The high school I graduated from hasn't had that many kids since the 60's which means they gotten along just fine for 40 years now with smaller class sizes.

Ok , some where a ways back, i wrote what i think could work, i want to spell it out again, and get some feedback from others. First i prefer to keep things as is, but to appease everyone a little here is a idea. You take the top 32 or 40 Class B schools, put them in one part of class B with their own Regions, 4 regions of 8 or 10 teams. Then the rest of the B schools would be put in 4 Regions, then u guarantee 4 bigger class B schools ,but u also guarantee 4 smaller class B schools. Also makes the conference games more competitive for some of the bigger schools cuz they wont have to play a bad small school team if they dont want to schedule one(ex: Bishop Ryan playing Max, which they dont). And you put the small school B teams in one side of the Bracket and the big B teams on the other bracket. So then u have 3 Classes but still only 2 major tournaments. Also this would give the bigger B schools a chance to play games with a shot clock if they so wish till the state tournament. Ok give me some feedback. Thanks

Thats my point, as a taxpayer I see alot of dollars that have been thrown away. We need to address that! If kids survive in a high school of 1500 students or more in our large cities I don't think we have to be afraid of a high school with 400 or 500 kids....We're trying to save a dinasour and it's killing the taxpayer in the process...

I think the idea of having the big b and small b is ok but a little tweak we should seed both sides and the the top seeded big b school play the lowest seeded small b school and so on why should the big b and small b be cheated out a championship game by beating each other out the tournament should be set up just like east and west in class a