After struggling in the AAA division, Baldwin’s ice hockey team was moved down to the AA level several years ago. There, the team was so successful that it won the 2021 state title and earned a promotion back up to AAA.

Though the team has not seen the same kind of success since rejoining the higher division, senior Tanner Plinta thinks that the move was beneficial to the team’s development.

“Moving around divisions gave our team more confidence to perform at a higher level of competition,” he said.

But other Baldwin sports teams, many of which have been struggling, do not have the same opportunity to move down a level based on performance.

Ice hockey, which is run by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League, is unique in that it uses both promotion and relegation: Teams that do very well move up to play in a higher division, and those that struggle are “relegated” down. The idea is that teams are moved to a division where they will face more balanced competition.

Most school sports, however, are run by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, in which teams can move up but not down a level.

Recently, the Butler Area School District proposed that the PIAA adopt a relegation system. According to Butler’s proposal, struggling schools and programs could move down a level, given sufficient adversity within their conference.

“The classifications don’t tell the whole story and sometimes set up really unfair competition,” Dr. Brian White, Butler Area’s superintendent, said.

The PIAA classifications are based on enrollment; but if a school gets enough transfer students and has enough success in a given sport, that team has to move up a division.

If upward mobility like this exists, White argues, then why isn’t the reverse also an option?