The MIAA’s 2025-26 tournament alignments were set in June, establishing which division each school and team will compete in during the upcoming state tournament season. 

The previous alignment had gone into place in 2023 and lasted two years. This upcoming alignment cycle is also expected to last two seasons, beginning in the fall of 2025 and ending in spring of 2027.

How do alignments work? It’s not as simple as taking each school’s enrollment and stacking divisions that way, though it’s similar. Instead of going strictly based on enrollment, the MIAA has created a formula known as the Competitive Equity Modifier (CEM).

What is the CEM? The CEM was introduced by the MIAA in 2023 in an attempt to establish the baseline enrollment for each school’s divisional alignment. According to the MIAA, the CEM “uses each school’s high needs percentage as well stability rate percentage to give a more accurate snapshot of a school’s enrollment.”

The stability rate measures how many students remain in a school throughout the year. The lower the stability rate percentage, the more students are in and out of that school while the high needs percentage includes all students who are classified either as economically disadvantaged, special education, English language learner or former English language learner.

Of the eight Recorder area high schools, three saw their CEM number rise this cycle. Franklin Tech made the largest gain, going from 538 for the previous cycle to 578 for the upcoming cycle. Athol and Turners Falls also went up but not by much, Athol going from 295 to 304 while Turners raising from 152 to 155.

The other five schools saw a decrease. The largest came at Greenfield, which went from a CEM of 327 to 243, a decrease of 84. Pioneer dropped by 55, going from 169 to 114 while Mahar also saw a big loss, going from 289 to 239. Frontier dropped from 386 to 354 while Mohawk Trail had a small loss, going from 128 to 117. 

How did that impact local teams during the realignment, which is done based on CEM rating? Not that much, though it did shift certain programs. 

The Franklin Tech field hockey team jumped from Div. 4 to Div. 3, but it’s the Eagles program to move up a division despite its rise in numbers. That’s because the Eagles had their appeal granted to remain in the lowest division during the previous alignment cycle.

The school to experience the most changes is Athol. Though its CEM only went up by nine, that was enough to bring the Bears boys and girls soccer teams up to Div. 4 from Div. 5. The Athol girls volleyball and softball teams also bumped up to Div. 4 from Div. 5. 

The Greenfield boys basketball team competed in Div. 4 in the last cycle but with its loss in numbers, is now in Div. 5. In the spring, the Turners Falls boys and girls tennis teams — which co-op with Franklin Tech — are moving up from Div. 4 to Div. 3. 

How is it that some programs at schools moved up a division and some stayed the same? It’s all due to how many schools in the state provide certain sports as well as some sports being petitioned down to Div. 5. For example, the Athol boys and girls basketball teams won their appeals to remain in Div. 5 for the upcoming cycle. 

The big question in the area was how the realignment would look at Frontier, the Redhawks being the lone school in the previous alignment to compete up a division (D4) in a majority of its sports. That didn’t change this time around, as Frontier remains in Div. 4 in boys and girls soccer, girls volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball. The Redhawks are also in Div. 2 in golf.