New School In Bentonville Creates Interesting Dynamic

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

It is still two years away before Bentonville West High School will open its doors to students for the first time and Northwest Arkansas will witness the emergence of the Wolverines.

Let's venture ahead and look at August 2016. I'm sure there will be mixed emotions throughout Bentonville, Centerton and Bella Vista during that first full day of school. There will be those excited about the newness of the second school and those who still don't like the idea of two separate schools in the district and a split fan base.

There are also those people who live outside the area, some of them who can't wait for Bentonville to become a two high school city. They think it will give their respective schools better chances to win conference and state championships in any sports.

The split could be a blessing in disguise for everybody in Class 7A but for a completely different reason. Bentonville West could be just what the state's largest schools need to finally split away from its Class 6A brethren and become a completely separate group with no more mixed conferences.

What, you might ask?

The idea came to me out of the blue before I found out Van Buren will petition later this year for the Class 7A and 6A schools be combined to form one classification. I'm all in favor of this happening, but if not, what I'm about to present is a viable alternative.

First, let's look at the numbers the Arkansas Activities Association used to determine classifications for the upcoming 2014-16 cycle, which consists of the average student attendance in grades nine to 11 during a three-year span. I will round up Bentonville, the state's largest school, to the nearest whole number, giving it 2,878 students.

If the split goes right down the middle, that would give Bentonville and Bentonville West 1,439 students apiece and tie them for 13th in size among the state's schools. That means both will be Class 7A schools, and somebody gets bumped down to Class 6A.

That "somebody" right now would be West Memphis, which is also the team the farthest east among Class 7A schools. That is a key move because it will cut a lot of travel out of this picture -- something that brought on the mixed classes and conferences in the first place.

The next step would be to split those 16 schools into two conferences. The biggest hurdle to clear in this situation would be to find out which school between Van Buren and the two from Fort Smith (Northside and Southside) would want to head north and join the seven in Benton and Washington counties, while the other two would head east.

I even think Bryant, which recently took the AAA to court because it's stuck in the 7A/6A-Central for the next two years, will go for this one. Its long treks up Interstate 40 would be cut from four to two, and it would get to trade trips to Siloam Springs, Greenwood and Alma for much shorter drives to Cabot, North Little Rock and Little Rock Central.

There are only two things that could seriously alter this thought in the next two years. One would be for West Memphis to pick up a really big influx of students in the next two years. The other is the possible merger of Jacksonville and North Pulaski to become bigger than expected -- and that hasn't been voted on at the present time.

I think this is something Class 7A schools should strongly consider before the AAA does its next reclassification cycle. If the 6A schools don't want to be in the same league with the bigger boys -- and some of them are quick to express their schools can't compete with the 7A teams -- then it could become the right time to give them their wish once and for all.

Sports on 04/01/2014