WILSONVILLE – The Executive Board of the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) voted 10-1 on Monday to approve the final recommendation from the Classification and Districting Committee, setting in motion a number of changes for the upcoming four-year period from 2018-2022.

The OSAA has a committee evaluate the current classification and district alignments every four years to determine if major changes are needed to help with competitive balance. After a years worth of meetings, hearing public testimony, considering submitted proposals, and much debate, the committee has made some significant changes. For teams around the Umpqua Basin, most of those changes come at the smaller school level.

High school sports in Oregon will continue to be broken down into six classification levels, but the enrollment cutoffs were altered, which will move some local teams to new classifications. Roseburg will remain in the 6A Southwest Conference, but the conference gets smaller as Willamette will drop to 5A.

One of the biggest changes will be the current 4A schools in the region – South Umpqua, Sutherlin, and Douglas – all drop to 3A and will join Brookings-Harbor, Cascade Christian, Rogue River and St. Mary’s of Medford in the newly created Umpqua River Conference. The conference will be the largest in the 3A classification, along with the Lewis & Clark League based in the Portland Metropolitan area.

Brookings-Harbor will be the largest school from the Umpqua River Conference with a projected enrollment of 445 students. Douglas is the second largest with an enrollment of 335 students. South Umpqua is projected at 331 and Sutherlin is 325. Sutherlin has not played in the same league with county rivals Douglas and South Umpqua since the Bulldogs were moved to the Sky-Em League four years ago.

Glide is dropping from the 3A level to 2A and joins the Mountain View Conference, while Oakland will move out of the Mountain View Conference and join the Tri-River Conference.

Riddle will drop from 2A to the 1A level and joins the rest of the small schools from the Umpqua Valley in the Skyline League.

These changes will take affect in the fall of 2018. Find the full breakdown of the classifications and districts HERE.