Thirty-nine division appeals that were initially denied by the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s sports advisory committees were approved by the AIA’s board.

The board didn’t request the attendance of school representatives who filed the appeals that were voted on Tuesday. But reps of the remaining appeals will likely be present to make their divisional case on Feb. 25, when the board will hold a special meeting to hear those final appeals.

Desert Edge football (Division II to Division III), White Mountain football teams Blue Ridge, Show Low and Snowflake (Division III to Division IV) and 14 Tucson-based teams that wanted to moved from D-I to D-II were among some of the appeals that were approved Tuesday. The AIA is planning to release the initial section placements for all team on March 4.

Football proposal

A football advisory committee proposal to reevaluate the placement of football teams after the 2015-16 school year, have the committee hear all of the appeals and split the football advisory committee into big and small school groups was discussed during Tuesday’s board meeting.

The board seemed to like the proposal’s ideas and talked about likely applying them to the other team sports as well. But the board wants to confer with its conference constituents first before bringing the proposal up for a vote.

“There’s some worthiness here,” said board member Toni Badone, Yuma Union High School District Superintendent, about the proposal.