{"id":858155,"date":"2026-09-23T20:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/858155\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T20:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:20:09","slug":"aisa-votes-to-drop-athletics-for-schools-starting-2027-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/858155\/","title":{"rendered":"AISA votes to drop athletics for schools starting 2027-2028"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">MONTGOMERY, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsfa.com\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"http:\/\/www.wsfa.com\">WSFA<\/a>) &#8211; The Board of Trustees for the Alabama Independent School Association has voted to eliminate all athletics from member schools, starting with the 2027\u20132028 school year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">[SPORTS APP USERS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsfa.com\/2026\/09\/23\/aisa-votes-drop-athletics-schools-starting-2027-2028\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wsfa.com\/2026\/09\/23\/aisa-votes-drop-athletics-schools-starting-2027-2028\/\">Click here<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The AISA currently sanctions sports including baseball, basketball, cheerleading, cross country, football, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and volleyball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The decision comes eight months to the day after the AHSAA announced a major restructuring of its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsfa.com\/2026\/01\/23\/ahsaa-approves-historic-reclassification-system\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wsfa.com\/2026\/01\/23\/ahsaa-approves-historic-reclassification-system\/\">championship format<\/a>, creating a system in which private schools compete against other private schools within the AHSAA for state titles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThis is an emotional decision because athletics has been an important part of AISA for more than half a century,\u201d said AISA Executive Director Michael McLendon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Here\u2019s how the change could affect students:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u2022<a href=\"https:\/\/aisaonline.org\/academic-district-host-schools\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/aisaonline.org\/academic-district-host-schools\/\">108 schools<\/a> are currently under the AISA structure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u202221 of those schools do not serve grades 9\u201312, leaving at least 87 schools with high school grades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u202221 schools are academically under AISA but already compete athletically in the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA), leaving 66 schools that rely on AISA for sports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u2022Of those 66 schools, at least 44 (about 66%) field at least one athletic team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u2022Across those 44 schools, there are more than 240 teams\/induvial combined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">AISA believes the changing landscape of private school athletics presents an opportunity for a fresh approach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">This is breaking news that will be updated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Not reading this story on the WSFA News App? Get news alerts FASTER and FREE in the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wsfa-12-news\/id449733109\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple App Store<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.raycom.wsfa&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play Store<\/a>! <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WSFA. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) &#8211; The Board of Trustees for the Alabama Independent School Association has voted to eliminate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[362345,5183,362346,4,450,451,3,99,452,453,20478,20477],"class_list":["post-858155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-aisa","tag-alabama","tag-alabama-independent-school-association","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-wfsa","tag-wsfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}