Get ready for six classfications in PIAA football.

Wednesday, the PIAA Strategic Planning Committee and the Football Steering Committee approved a proposal to expand from four to six classes, beginning in the 2016 season.

In what was called ‘a great day’ by District 9 representative Bob Tonkin, the representatives from both committees with present the proposal to the PIAA Board of Directors at their next meeting on Oct. 7.

With 31 voting members, a majority of 16 ‘yes’ votes will complete the process that began in December.

It was Tonkin who originally proposed the idea, and needless to say, he was encouraged by committees’ votes, which were approved 9-6 by Strategic Planning and 9-3 by Football Steering.

Districts 1, 7 (WPIAL), 8 (Pittsburgh City League) and 12 (Philadelphia City) were the districts that voted against the proposal.

“It was a pretty big step forward,” Tonkin said.

The original idea he proposed was based on looking at both the pros and cons of expanding and also looking at the classes in other states throughout the country.

“I constructed a map, and the ratio of school sponsored sports and championships in Pennsylvania is way out of whack with rest of country,” Tonkin said. “There are 602 schools that participate in track in Pennsylvania and we have two championships. Alabama has half the number of schools and they have seven classes. One of the starting points certainly was looking at the states and numbers.”

There are also other things to consider in the proposal.

The first is that the second scrimmage date for schools will now be an optional play date.

“What do you do with the kids with a whole month before the first game?” Tonkin said. “This gives schools the option to play on the second scrimmage date.”

By doing this, it would still give teams the option of a 10-game regular season schedule, as opposed to the nine it would play with the regular season being shortened by one week under the new proposal.

The reason for shortening the regular season by a week was so that the state championships will get done a week earlier. This season, the state finals are schedules for Dec. 18 and 19. Under the new proposal, the finals would be Dec. 9 and 10.

This, among other things, limits the amount of times players are subjected to practice time in inclement weather, as well as the amount of time they would miss with the start of winter sports.

The classifications themselves break down like this under the new proposal: Class A (46 to 139 male enrollment at school); Class AA (140 to 197); Class AAA (198 to 284); Class AAAA (285 to 390); Class AAAAA (391 to 577); and Class AAAAAA (578 to 2,138).

Locally under the new proposal and in accordance with the latest enrollment numbers provided by the PIAA, Warren would be Class AAAA, while Eisenhower, Youngsville and Sheffield would all remain in Class A.

Another motion to implement expansion in several team sports boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball was also brought up at Wednesday’s meeting.

The motion passed on first reading, meaning that district officials on each steering committee will begin to gather information and feedback from their member schools.

“I’ve been bombarded by people in regards to expanding playoffs in other sports,” Tonkin said. “I think you could eventually see that expand to all team sports.”