The Georgia High School Association released its classifications for the 2020-2022 school years on Tuesday and Richmond Hill High School has been placed in Class AAAAAAA, which includes the state’s largest high schools by enrollment.

The deadline to appeal is Nov. 11, according to the GHSA website, and appeals will be heard Nov. 12.

The school will appeal the GHSA’s decision, according to RHHS Athletic Director Mickey Bayens.  

“Richmond Hill High School will plan to appeal the initial GHSA classification of 7 A,” Bayens said in an email. “Our main appeal revolves around the GHSA by laws that state a school may appeal if the one way average distance of future opponents (possibly Camden, Colquitt, Lowndes, and Tift) are an average of approximately 115 miles.  Not to mention the cost of travel plus loss of instructional time for our students.”

He added, “I should share average one way distance is over 100 miles and our potential future region opponents based on Mapquest shows 115 miles one way average,” in a separate email.

 RHHS has a reclassification count of 2,566 in 2020, according to the GHSA.

Bryan County High School will remain in AA under the GHSA reclassification, which is done every two years in order to ensure schools compete against those similar in enrollment. Class AAAAAAA includes 47 schools, most of which are located in Metro Atlanta.

Richmond Hill was a Class AA school as recently as the mid 1990s, but South Bryan has seen decades of rapid residential growth. 

Region alignments have not been announced, but were RHHS to remain in Class AAAAAAA the closest schools to RHHS geographically would likely be Camden County, with others including Lowndes County and Colquitt County in southwest Georgia.