Dripping Springs preps for reclassification year

As attention turns to the new academic year and its sports seasons, a question lurks in the background: how will this year’s schools (and competition) be categorized for the following year?

This is the year the UIL will determine the classification and district assignment of every UIL school in the state for the next two years. Classification is determined by the school's enrollment and is determined on a certain day in October. District assignments will come early in February. So many times over the years, the UIL assignment determined a team's success or failure for those years, establishing the difficulty of their competition.

Dripping Springs High School should only have to wonder about the district assignment. They have slowly but consistently moved through the classifications since the 1960s. District growth has put the school in the top classification, Conference 6A, and that is not expected to change for a while. What has been a consistent unknown is who the UIL will assign in DSHS’s district. The location of Dripping Springs has always put it on the outer edge of district assignments, and the UIL has not worried about distance nor direction.

In the history of Dripping Springs, it was often assigned to districts that represented a complete 360 degrees in direction. The more distant schools included Lampasas, Brady, Bandera, Sabinal, Medina Valley, Stockdale, LaGrange, Giddings, Elgin, Belton and Killeen. One time, DSHS was assigned to a basketball district that included Center Point, Leakey and Medina. Fortunately, being in 6A narrows down the choices.