The following is a news release issued by the AIA today regarding the initial division placements:

Phoenix, AZ (Saturday, Jan. 24) – In our ongoing evaluation of the files provided back to the AIA, an issue has been identified that has impacted the initial division placement released on Tuesday, Jan. 20.

In order to meet the objectives of good sportsmanship and opportunities, the AIA embarked on the project to ensure an intelligent approach to division placement.  The AIA hired two highly competent consultants to create and administer a formula. The two person team consists of a Ph.D. in mathematics, and a Ph.D. candidate in statistics at Harvard.  Together they developed a formula for classifying member schools in team sports.

Part of the initial data provided for this analysis and ultimate creation of the formula included school enrollment, free/reduced lunch and the MaxPreps.com ratings history for the last six years. The information included ratings data consisting of rating value, the win strength and the record.

On Friday, January 16, the AIA received the formula and initial data points from the consultants.  The AIA prepared the information to be released on Tuesday, January 20, while starting to build the formula into its own database.

Once the formula was built, while receiving feedback from the membership, the AIA began to run the snapshots by sport internally. On Wednesday, January 21, a potential issue was discovered, On Thursday, January 22, a memo was sent informing member schools of the situation. 

The consultants were reengaged and quickly identified that they had utilized the win strength column in the formula instead of the rate value column as intended.  AIA and the consultants are working jointly to run the formula using the correct data points and update the initial division placements.

It is anticipated that the updates will occur no later than Monday close of business, if not sooner.

To accommodate the member schools, the AIA is pushing back the division appeals deadline to Monday, Feb. 2 at 2 p.m., with the first appeals hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 8:30 a.m.

About the Arizona Interscholastic Association:
The AIA, is voluntary association of public and private Arizona high schools.  Since 1913, the organization has created and sustained interscholastic activities that encourage maximum student participation by providing AIA member schools with an even playing field to ensure fair and equitable competition.  The AIA believes that providing interscholastic activities for Arizona high school students creates personal development opportunities with a balanced focus on academics and extracurricular activities. 

Through its 272 member schools, the AIA reaches more than 95,000 participants in high school activity programs.  The organization hosts 4000 championship contests and maintains officiating for more than 45,000 regular season games.   For more information, visit www.aiaonline.org and www.azpreps365.com.