On the Move: Shadow Creek, Willis Grand Oaks, Tomball move to 6A; La Porte, Baytown Sterling move down

HOUSTON – Shadow Creek is officially done in Class 5A.

Moving into the 2020-2022 UIL Realignment, which will take place on February 3, the Sharks will be placed for the first time in school history into a Class 6A district.

On Tuesday, the UIL released their cutoff numbers for the next round of realignment, with Class 6A's cutoff being at 2,200 and above.

According to a report on the UIL website, Shadow Creek turned in a number of 2,673.5 back in October on "Snapshot Day" – the day where the school's attendance is taken and given to the UIL for this very purpose.

Today, Shadow Creek is officially 474.5 students over the cutline.

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Since moving into 5A for football during the last realignment, Shadow Creek, which played its first two seasons independently, has thrived.

The Sharks have won back-to-back district championships, played in the Class 5A Division I State Championship game last year against Highland Park and is facing Manor this weekend in the State Quarterfinals. Since the games officially started counting for Shadow Creek, the Sharks are an amazing 28-1 overall.

But Shadow Creek isn't the only program on the move.

Conroe ISD's newest school Grand Oaks will make the jump from 5A to 6A as well. The school nestled off the 99 Grand Parkway in North Houston saw its numbers balloon to 2,812.95.

At February's realignment, the Grizzlies' football team will find out its first-ever district. Grand Oaks has spent the past two years playing an independent schedule, just like Shadow Creek.

The Grizzlies went 6-4 this year and 7-3 in 2018, playing a schedule mostly filled with private school teams. The Grand Oaks volleyball team did compete in 5A, with this past season being its best winning the District 20-5A Championship with a 17-1 mark in district play.

It will be interesting where they could be placed. Being a 6A program pushes them up there with the rest of the Conroe ISD programs, which for the last two years resided in District 15-6A with Klein ISD schools.

If Grand Oaks is added to that grouping that would give that district 10 programs. So, a preliminary thought is the five Conroe ISD schools could be realigned back with the four Humble ISD schools to make a nine-team district.

Prior to the last realignment, Conroe ISD and Humble ISD programs did play against each other, while Klein ISD programs were with Spring Branch ISD schools. In the last realignment though, Spring Branch ISD schools got paired with Cy-Fair ISD programs in District 17-6A when Cy-Fair ISD split its programs into two different districts for the first time.

But we will see, you never know what will happen on realignment day.

Tomball is another area of Houston that has seen exponential growth, especially with the building of the 249 Tollway a few years ago. The growth pushed Tomball Memorial into Class 6A in the 2018 realignment.

Now, Tomball High School will join them.

Tomball turned in a number of 2,448 for its enrollment officially pushing it into Class 6A. Tomball Memorials' was 2,543.5.

This, along with Willis making the jump from 5A to 6A, by a mere four students (2,223), will shake up what has been a very fun District 8-5A-DI to watch. With the exit of Tomball and Willis that will be interesting as it leaves Lufkin, College Station, Magnolia, Magnolia West, Waller and Caney Creek.

Katy Paetow moving up to Class 5A DI could be a candidate to slide over and take one of those spots vacated by Tomball and Willis.

Another move up is Fulshear going from Class 4A to 5A Division II.

The Chargers are just weeks removed from winning the program's first-ever volleyball state championship. Fulshear has also excelled in tennis and wrestling in the short time it has been open.

Other notable moves include Baytown Sterling moving from 6A down to 5A DI, while La Porte moves from 6A all the way down to 5A DII and new school Katy Jordan will be in 5A but won't play football during the 2020 or 2021 seasons in a UIL district.