The Mississippi High School Activities Association will apply a 1.5 multiplier to all of its private and parochial member schools in the next round of reclassification, beginning with the 2027–28 seasons.
How the multiplier works. The MHSAA sorts its member schools into classifications — 1A through 7A — based largely on enrollment, with the smallest schools in 1A and the largest in 7A. A multiplier changes the number the association uses when it draws those lines. Under the new rule, a private or parochial school's enrollment will be counted at 150% of its actual figure for classification purposes. A school that reports 400 students, for example, would be treated as a 600-student school when the brackets are set — often enough to push a program up a classification and into games against larger schools.
The rule takes effect at the next reclassification cycle rather than right away. Current alignments hold through the 2026–27 school year, and the adjusted enrollment figures first apply in 2027–28.
Enrollment multipliers are a tool a number of state associations have adopted to address competitive-balance concerns between traditional public schools and private, parochial, magnet, or choice schools. The reasoning is that a school without a fixed attendance zone can draw students — and athletes — from a wider geographic area than a neighborhood public school, which can concentrate talent. Counting that enrollment at a higher rate is meant to move those schools up to compete against larger programs.
The change follows a baseball season that put the public-versus-private question back near the top of the conversation. Presbyterian Christian, in its first year as an MHSAA member, defeated Booneville for the Class 4A state championship. PCS had left the MAIS as a state champion — beating Hartfield Academy a year ago — before joining the MHSAA and winning again, this time over the Booneville Blue Devils.
MHSAA Executive Director Ricky Nieves is a former principal at Booneville. The multiplier also arrives after years of debate over private-school success in the association, particularly in Class I (1A/2A/3A) soccer, where parochial programs have regularly dominated and public schools such as Franklin County and Loyd Star have often been among the last locals eliminated from the postseason. Calls for change have come through editorials, social media, and letters to the association.
It is not the first time the issue has reshaped the membership. In 2014, two parochial schools — Cathedral and St. Aloysius — met in the MHSAA Class 1A football championship, with Cathedral winning, and Cathedral later won a baseball title over Smithville that same school year. After it came to light that Cathedral had players commuting from Louisiana, the MHSAA barred Cathedral, St. Aloysius, and Greenville-St. Joseph from playing out-of-state students (boarding schools exempted). The three schools moved to the MAIS.
Presbyterian Christian joined the MHSAA this year citing a desire to cut down on travel time from its former MAIS district, which was based in Jackson. Whether the multiplier changes that calculation remains to be seen; Hartfield Academy spent a two-year stint in the MHSAA before returning to private-school competition and growing into the program it is today.
The change also lands amid a broader rise in athlete movement across both associations, with transfers between the MHSAA and the MAIS — and within each — more common than in years past.
