NJSIAA Schools Approve Major Change For Football, Basketball Groupings: Report

NEW JERSEY — The NJSIAA has approved a significant change to how teams are groups for the state tournaments in football and basketball that aims to better balance competition, according to documents on the change.

The change approved by the membership of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, which governs high school sports in New Jersey, would affect teams from "non-traditional" public schools. It was approved by a 189-94 vote at the NJSIAA's annual meeting, NJ.com reported.

It takes effect for the 2026-27 school year, according to NJSIAA documents.

The state association groups schools for state tournaments based on their geography and their enrollment of ninth through 11th grades, with public schools and non-public schools — primarily parochial schools — competing separately.

In recent years, however, the expansion of charter schools around the state along with choice schools has created some imbalances in the level of competition because those schools do not draw specifically from a single town or geographic area.

The NJ.com report cited a charter school in Asbury Park, College Achieve of Asbury Park, that said the school created what was essentially an all-star team in boys basketball. The team went on win the NJSIAA Group I championship in the 2023-24 season. In 2024-25 the team played in elite national tournaments and events instead of an NJSIAA schedule.

Choice schools — public schools in New Jersey that offer special programs to draw students from other schools — have been operating for more than 10 years and came under significant scrutiny and criticism when they were first approved. Opponents argued they were created to siphon star athletes from other schools.

Other schools affected by the grouping changes are those that permit tuition-paying students, county magnet or academy schools, and schools with satellite campuses for county academies.

It affects at least a dozen schools in football and at least 30 in boys and girls basketball, according to the groupings listed on the NJSIAA website. There are 440 member schools in the NJSIAA.

Under the change, the schools fielding football or basketball teams will find their group classifications adjusted based on how they perform in the state tournaments. A team that has more success in the tournament will be moved up in the grouping to compete against schools with larger enrollments to improve the competition for both the non-traditional team and its opponents, according to the documents. They would then play in the higher classification grouping for at least two years.

Teams would never be moved to groups smaller than their natural enrollment, the documents say.

The changes to higher groupings would be based on a points system. The full explanation can be read in the documents.

The schools also would have to provide varsity rosters that showed the enrollment status of all of the players on the team, under the new rules.

The goal is to avoid situations such as what existed with College Achieve of Asbury Park. Its enrollment classifies it as a Group I school, the smallest enrollment group in the state, but it was routinely defeating other Group I opponents by 25 points or more in the 2023-24 season, according to records maintained by NJ.com.

Colleen Maguire, the executive director of the NJSIAA, told NJ.com the move brings New Jersey in line with other state high school athletics organizations across the United States and addressing imbalances.

"Over the last five years, we have so many public schools looking at so many different avenues," she told NJ.com. "Whether it’s trying to drive additional revenue, or provide additional programming, a public school kid in any given area of the state probably has multiple options to attend a public school. So this is just trying to keep up with that evolution."