In Iowa, high school sports are divided into class levels based on student enrollment to ensure fair competition. Depending on the sport, these levels can range from 1A to 5A. But, as enrollment numbers have shifted across the state, so has the competitive environment.
Schools with larger student bodies often dominate over their smaller counterparts. Many factors contribute to this, but the leading one is schools simply having more athletes to choose from.
These enrollment gaps can turn what is supposed to be an even playing field into a tilted scale. This leads to questions about how effective the current class system is at creating equal competition.
Schools like West Des Moines Valley, which recently won its third consecutive championship in boys basketball, have emerged as athletic powerhouses in recent years. They have also made back-to-back appearances in the football semifinal.
Many athletes, like Jack McCaffery ’25, believe the leading cause of this is their booming enrollment. “I mean, it’s not a secret, they just have a lot more kids,” he said.
Valley High School only houses grades 10-12 and has a separate building for ninth graders, but according to U.S. News and World Report, it has over 2100 students. For reference, West High only has around 1550 students as a 9-12 high school.
The number of students able to compete in high school sports at Valley is even higher than their enrollment. Even though the ninth graders are not factored into enrollment, they can participate in high school sports. This pushes the number of athletes Valley can choose from to over 2800, nearly double West High.
It’s not just Valley High School that has a huge student body, it’s all of the Des Moines metro. The Des Moines metro area is the area around the city of Des Moines. This area comprises towns like Ankeny, Waukee, Urbandale and West Des Moines.
This area created a conference called the Central Iowa Metropolitan League with nine schools. Ankeny, Ankeny Centennial, Dowling Catholic, Johnston, Southeast Polk, Urbandale, Waukee, Waukee Northwest and West Des Moines Valley.
Of these nine schools, seven are among the top 11 in the state in enrollment size, with Dowling Catholic and Urbandale as the only outliers.
Dowling can stay competitive as they are a private school that can recruit talented athletes. Urbandale, on the other hand, has constantly been outclassed by these bigger schools, as their enrollment doesn’t even reach 1000.
The CIML’s dominance has been put on display, especially recently, when in 2023 the conference was able to secure 15 state championships across boys and girls sports.
This area is constantly growing and will only continue to dominate the east side of the state unless action is taken. Something like schools splitting up will positively affect the state’s competitive environment.
West High is a perfect example. Before their split with Liberty, West High dominated as one of the biggest high schools in the state. Since Liberty’s establishment in 2017-2018, West has seen its success tail off as they have now slipped into the bottom half of enrollment in 4A.
The effects of the split were not immediate because many students opted to finish their high school years at West. In the 2017-2018 football season, West was at its peak. They finished the season 12-1, losing to Dowling in the State Championship.
In basketball, West had made the state championship six times, including the year of the split. After that, West made the playoffs only once, losing in the quarterfinals to Ankeny.
Baseball was also impacted significantly. Leading up to the split, the baseball team finished with 30 wins for five consecutive seasons. Since 2019, the closest the team has gotten to that was 22 wins in 2021
While a split is one way to combat the imbalance in the field, there are also other ways this can be done. The state is beginning to consider other things when creating classes for football to try to help the smaller programs. Administrators like our athletic director, BJ Mayer, have also pointed to simple solutions that anyone can do.
While Iowa’s current class system has trouble keeping pace with growing enrollment disparities, there are many possible solutions on the horizon. None of them will be possible without the cooperation of athletes, community members and administration. Only through a collective effort can real changes occur, benefiting the competition in sports for generations of athletes to come.
