The new ADMs were approved earlier this month by the OSSAA board of directors.

The ADM - Average Daily Membership or enrollment - is used to determine classifications yearly for sports like volleyball, baseball and basketball.

And they’re used to determine new football classifications - and districts - every two years.

This is one of the years the districts are drawn up, although they don’t take effect until the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

While the argument can - and has - been made about the absurdity of the fact the size of the 2020 graduating class plays a role in where schools land in the 2022 and 2023 seasons, it is how it’s done.

(Note: For now, anyway. There has been chatter about updating the process in which ADMs are accepted each year to include that year’s early enrollment numbers as opposed to the year before, but I digress.)

As for the 2021-22 ADM and how it will affect a local school this year...

Well it appears to be Hennessey.

The yo-yo continues for Kingfisher County’s northernmost high school in terms of basketball classification.

Hennessey bumped down from 3A to 2A in the 2018-19 season...and the boys basketball team subsequently reached the state title game.

It was back up to 3A the next season, but last year the Eagles and Lady Eagles competed in 2A.

Well, back to 3A goes Hennessey in 2021-22.

It’s ADM of 225.22 (Grades 9-12) made it the third-smallest school in 3A initially.

However, the OSSAA has in place rules that move up non-public schools once they achieve a certain level of sustained success in sports.

Christian Heritage Academy and Rejoice Christian were two such schools, so they were bumped up from 2A to 3A.

That meant the two smallest 3A schools - in this case it was Coalgate and Tishomingo - were able to drop down to Class 2A.

Coalgate has an ADM of 224.57.

That means the difference of Hennessey staying in 3A and moving to 2A was .65 student.

It’s that close. Essentially one student determined Hennessey’s basketball classification for this year.

For the girls program, it may not make a huge difference as the Lady Eagles are in rebuilding mode.

For the boys?

It might be the difference in scratching and clawing to reach the first or second day of area in Class 3A and making the state tournament in 2A.

While 2A is going to have a couple of really quality teams (Hennessey’s conference and county foe Cashion being one of them), the overall strength of the class doesn’t compare to 3A.

Football districts

Here’s how the change affects football the next couple of seasons (again, this doesn’t start until the 2022 season).

None of the local schools change classification.

Forty-five football schools will move either up or down next year, which is about normal.

Of note and one that can certainly be attributed to COVID-19: The state’s overall ADM was down about 5,000 students as compared to the year before.

More than 300 of the state’s school districts reported smaller ADMs than the previous year.

Again, that didn’t affect anyone locally.

Kingfisher’s district changes the most...and travel is going to pick up over the next two seasons.

KHS is again in District 3A-1 and will be joined by Anadarko, Mannford, Metro Christian, Mount St. Mary, McLoud, North Rock Creek and Perkins-Tryon.

Mannford, Metro Christian and North Rock Creek are the new schools. Dropping from the current district will be Bridge Creek, Douglass and Heritage Hall.

The question I got most often after the release of the districts was: Where’s North Rock Creek?

The answer is the northeast side of Shawnee.

The school is relatively new to the OSSAA and I wouldn’t have known where it was myself, but I noticed the school was the host site for an area basketball tournament a couple seasons ago and messaged David Glover to inquire.

The next question I got was: How long’s it gonna take to get from Metro to ‘Darko?

According to Google maps, “only” about 2 1/2 hours. It’s mostly turnpike, but still quite the haul for a football district game.

So, Kingfisher fans, get ready to travel the next couple of seasons.

The closest district games will be Perkins (55 miles) and Mount St. Mary (50 miles).

We won’t know until district coaches draw up their schedules which schools we visit next season and which schools in 2023, but we’ll be hitting each of them once over that span.

District 2A-1 rarely sees big changes in its lineup and that’s the case yet again.

Here’s who will be joining Hennessey: Alva, Blackwell, Chisholm, Millwood, Newkirk, Oklahoma Christian School and Perry.

The only change from the current lineup is Luther is moving out and Millwood moving in.

District A-3, which houses Cashion and Crescent will see a bit of change.

The new district will see them joined by Pioneer, Oklahoma Christian Academy, Christian Heritage, Watonga, Hinton and Minco.

Pioneer, CHA and Minco are the new teams.

The current lineup will see OBA and Tonkawa leave (Note: The district currently has seven teams, but will have eight the next two seasons.)

Of note, OBA petitioned the OSSAA to drop from 11-man to 8-man the next two seasons due to a lack of numbers.

The school won’t be in a district or compete in the playoffs.

Pioneer, meanwhile, is moving up to 11-man from the 8-man ranks.

Where do you rank?

If you’re like me, you like to look at the numbers.

So, where does everyone rank in this year’s ADM?

There are currently 477 OSSAA member institutions.

Of the local schools, Kingfisher is the largest with an ADM of 412.63.

That is the 105th largest in the state.

Hennessey sits at 190 on the list with its 225.22.

Cashion is next. Its 186.83 puts it at 225.

Crescent has an ADM of 172.86, which is 240th in size.

Okarche falls at 297 with an ADM of 113.53.

Lomega has an ADM of 60.08, which is 418th.

Dover is the smallest local school again with its ADM of 45.47, which is 449th.

If you were curious, and I know you were, Freedom is the OSSAA’s smallest district with an ADM of 13.27.

Broken Arrow remains the largest with an ADM of 5,235.50.

Comparison

Some local schools bucked the trend of lower ADMs this year compared to the previous.

Three of the seven area schools actually saw increases.

The biggest was Dover, which increased 10.48 students over last year’s 34.99.

Also increasing were Cashion (6.36) and Crescent (10.1).

Kingfisher saw a decrease of 31.31 students.

Hennessey was down 2.3 while Okarche dipped 4.07 and Lomega 3.78.

Like I noted earlier, a majority of the state’s drop can be attributed to COVID-19 and many families opting to go a different route than sending their students to the local public school (Epic Charter Schools saw a huge gain, for example).

Then again, sometimes it’s just the difference in a larger class graduating and being replaced by a smaller incoming class.