LOWER MERION \u2013 After months of discussion, Lower Merion and Harriton High School will merge their football programs into a single, cooperative team beginning with the 2027\u201328 academic year.<\/p>\n
Lower Merion School District Superintendent Frank Ranelli made the announcement in a letter to the community earlier this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to let you know that the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), at their October meeting, approved LMSD\u2019s application to form a cooperative Lower Merion and Harriton (merged) football team, beginning with the 2027 football season,\u201d Ranelli wrote in his letter.<\/p>\n
The decision follows a push by parents and a petition signed by more than 300 community members to address shrinking rosters, declining competitiveness, and student-athlete safety. Concerns peaked in September 2026 when Harriton abruptly suspended its varsity season because of low participation after an opening 53-0 loss to Pottstown before the decision to cancel.<\/p>\n
In May, the Lower Merion Board of School Directors held a special meeting to discuss what to do with the district\u2019s football programs.<\/p>\n
At that meeting, board member Anna Shurak moved to add an agenda item to create a cooperative football program. <\/p>\n
At the May meeting, Shurak explained that a cooperative program is legal language in PIAA rules that allows the district to apply to combine the teams.<\/p>\n
Ranelli said he will meet in the coming weeks with school principals, athletic directors, and football coaches to work out the merger details.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will look at all the relevant logistical topics and the impact on related activities such as cheer and pep band,\u201d Ranelli wrote.<\/p>\n
Ranelli said the district will update the community on the process in the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile thoughtfully implementing this change to our high school football programs will require a lot of work, the goal is to create a sustainable program that prioritizes the safety of our student athletes while preserving their opportunities to participate,\u201d Ranelli wrote. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWER MERION \u2013 After months of discussion, Lower Merion and Harriton High School will merge their football programs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[305,182,183,185,184,186,200,139,28,726],"class_list":["post-312626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-high-school-sports","tag-local-news","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-montgomery-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}