By Don Ketchum

Let the scrambling begin. Or, maybe not.

It depends on your high school’s point of view.

The Arizona Interscholastic Association’s latest round of realignment appears to be as equitable as possible, given enrollment size.

The new alignments for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years, based on enrollments as of Oct. 1, 2010, were unveiled at a meeting of the AIA Executive Board on Monday (Oct. 18).

The state will be broken down into five divisions, except for football, which will have six (the last being eight-man). The current setup has seven classifications. Classes 5A and 4A are split into two divisions each.

Schools will be allowed to petition to go up, but not down, if they think they can compete at a higher level. Teams can remain in one division in one sport but can go up in another. The petitioning process must be completed by Oct. 25, with the final version put into place in mid-November.

If boys and girls play the same sport, say, basketball, and one of them wants to go up, both teams would have to go because of travel considerations.

“The consensus of committee members was to appeal up by sport but not to appeal down,’’ said Chuck Schmidt, AIA Chief Operating Officer.

The five divisions appear to be close to even. Division I, the highest level, has 38 football teams and 39 in divisions II, III, IV and V, with 30 in Division VI (eight-man). The schools that are in Division VI will be blended into IV or V in the other sports.

The divisions were determined after separate advisory meetings were held between the AIA and representatives from each sport.

The new schedules for the first year will be formulated in the spring by computer. There might be a few football games done manually. AIA officials said there have been as many as 35,000 variations projected.

Every attempt will be made to make the competition as geographic as possible, with drive times and travel routes having a major impact in scheduling. These will be called sections.

The top three schools in terms of enrollment for Division I are Mesa Red Mountain (3,442), Chandler Hamilton (3,431) and Mesa Mountain View (3,369). Many of the Phoenix Union High School District schools are in this division.

The top three for Division II are Goodyear Millennium (2,184), Laveen Cesar Chavez (2,169) and Phoenix Horizon (2,160).

The top three for Division III are Florence Poston Butte (1,725), Queen Creek (1,711) and Glendale Copper Canyon (1,708).

The top three for Division IV are Scottsdale Coronado (1,295), Cottonwood Mingus (1,260) and Tucson Palo Verde (1,255).

The top three for Division V are Sedona Red Rock (489), Queen Creek San Tan Foothills (475) and Keams Canyon Hopi (455).

The top three for Division VI (eight-man football) are Phoenix Country Day School (239), Phoenix Veritas Prep (228) and Pima (207). Pima has been going back and forth between the current Class 1A and Class 2A formats for quite some time.

For a look at the entire breakdown by sport, go to www.aiaonline.org.