Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 17:07     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
You are allowed to reclass, its within the current VHSL rules.

With the new VHSL transfer rules going into effect this summer all the big publics should have a lot fewer reclasses and transfers playing.


You're allowed to reclass, but you can still only play 4 years of VHSL sports. Once you enroll as a freshman, your 4 year clock starts, so you better reclass in elementary or middle school.

Better hope you were born at the right time too because if you reclass and turn 19 before August 1st of your senior year, you're ineligible.

With the new VHSL rules, parents are going to have to make the reclass and transfer decisions before the 8th grade year so their kid is enrolled at the proper feeder middle school. That new 365 day ban is going to hit some kids like a freight train if they do this wrong.

It's kind of funny to see the super seniors at St. James - kids that reclassed in middle school then played 4 years in a VHSL public school, then reclassed again and went to the St. James after their public school senior season.

Crazy an athlete could hypothetically: reclass in middle school, play 4 years VHSL, reclass again and transfer to a private school, go to prep school, play 9 games in college & redshirt, then play 4 more years. Graduating college at 25-26.

Also juco is no longer counted towards eligibility. I know a kid that reclassed in middle school, played basketball at O’Connell, played 2 years at a Juco, and started his first of college basketball this year.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 17:00     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Oh please, my two kids play basketball in a large FCPS HS and I can think of more than 5 reclasses just on the boys basketball teams.

Westfields has more than 5.


No, they don't. Do they have more than 5 transfers? Yes. More than 5 reclassed kids, no.

Practially the entire team has been playing on various AAU teams since they were children. A simple search on PrepHoops shows what age bracket and class the majority of the team has been in since middle school lol.

Let's stop spewing nonsense and drop hard facts...

Name 5 or more reclassed kids, besides Malachi.

Ready, go...

If you understood what’s going on in basketball, you would know that you can’t tell how old a kid is by which bracket they play in. Kids that reclassed play with their grade most of the time.

Kids that should be playing 17u are playing 15u and 16u and are 19 year olds playing 17u.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 16:53     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:Lets pretend there really are 5, hell lets say there's 7.

2500 kids at Westfield.

500+ involved in athletics.

That's barely over 1%.

An extreme outlier to the data set, but again, still in the 1% range.

Lets say Westfield enrollment went down.

2400 kids.

400 in athletics.

7 reclasses.

Still, in the less than 2% range


We aren’t talking about the entire school population, we are talking about the basketball team. People are upset because it creates a maturity disadvantage for some of the kids who haven’t reclassed.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 12:28     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:St James sales pitch was getting kids to play in college but I don't see any evidence that is the case on their social media.

Where are they posting all the college commits they are getting on exchange for 30k+ tuition a year?


when your only real comp was a 35-0 running clock blowout, your film doesn't mean much
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:52     Subject: St James Academy
St James sales pitch was getting kids to play in college but I don't see any evidence that is the case on their social media.

Where are they posting all the college commits they are getting on exchange for 30k+ tuition a year?
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:49     Subject: St James Academy
Yes, they transferred or moved after 9th, which would have been approved by VHSL.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:42     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:As someone upthread noted, you are allowed to reclass AND transfer under VHSL rules. No one started bussing kids into Westfield in a van from Fredericksburg and dropping them off at a 7-11 for basketball.

Their basketball team is good this year but sucked a few years ago, that's how high school sports go sometimes. Next year after all their seniors graduate, they will be a much weaker team.

Anyone who knows local basketball knows there isn't a story there, because we have seen these kids play for Westfield for years.



Anyone that knows local basketball watched 2 of the current starting 5 play for Centreville.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:41     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:There's not, because kids can get approved to transfer between FCPS HSes for non-sport reasons and then play sports.

If there was a "story" to be investigated, some salty coach would be all over it. Most of that team and all their stars played Varsity together last year and have all been at Westfield for years. (My kid is at CHS so I have seen them play for years).


The non-sport reason (homeless act, class waiver, family waiver, etc) being exploited, is the story.

Brings up memories of a certain "natural resources" program Freedom-Woodbridge used to offer that was coincidentally packed with football players...
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:38     Subject: St James Academy
As someone upthread noted, you are allowed to reclass AND transfer under VHSL rules. No one started bussing kids into Westfield in a van from Fredericksburg and dropping them off at a 7-11 for basketball.

Their basketball team is good this year but sucked a few years ago, that's how high school sports go sometimes. Next year after all their seniors graduate, they will be a much weaker team.

Anyone who knows local basketball knows there isn't a story there, because we have seen these kids play for Westfield for years.

Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:27     Subject: St James Academy
There's not, because kids can get approved to transfer between FCPS HSes for non-sport reasons and then play sports.

If there was a "story" to be investigated, some salty coach would be all over it. Most of that team and all their stars played Varsity together last year and have all been at Westfield for years. (My kid is at CHS so I have seen them play for years).
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:22     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:I think there are more like 2800+ kids at Westfield.

The truth is that certain sports are a lot more likely to have reclasses than others. No one reclasses for field hockey.


That just makes the overall percentage of reclasses even lower. It's really not as popular as people think. Westfield basketball does have a few and is an obvious outlier. Hence why they're 14-1.

No one is reclassing at Annandale, or Justice, or Falls Church, or Edison, or Lewis, or TJ, or Woodson, any ACHS, or any of the LCPS schools that suck at athletics etc.

With schools like SJA and LSA popping up and new VHSL rules going into effect, you're going to see even fewer public school reclasses as kids are going to wait and reclass when they transfer to the private school.


Side note: How the media hasn't jumped on Westfield basketball like they did Hayfield football is interesting. Percentage wise 3-4 reclasses/transfers on a high school basketball team of 14 is roughly the same as 30 transfers out of 90 players on a high school football team. Not saying it's the same situation at all, it isn't. But there is 100000% some sort of story to be investigated when it comes to Westfield basketball.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:17     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:My nephew plays for Westfield. Including him they have 3.


3 that you know of. You don't know every kid's birthday on all three teams.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:13     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:No sure why people get so pissed off about reclassing when many families hold their child back before they start Kindergarten. The VHSL has age limit rules already. If a kid falls outside of those rules they are ineligible regardless of choosing to reclass.


In boys basketball, there are lots of kids with spring and summer birthdays who redshirted, and then reclassed in 8th.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:11     Subject: St James Academy
No sure why people get so pissed off about reclassing when many families hold their child back before they start Kindergarten. The VHSL has age limit rules already. If a kid falls outside of those rules they are ineligible regardless of choosing to reclass.
Anonymous
Post 01/16/2026 10:10     Subject: St James Academy
Anonymous wrote:
You are allowed to reclass, its within the current VHSL rules.

With the new VHSL transfer rules going into effect this summer all the big publics should have a lot fewer reclasses and transfers playing.


You're allowed to reclass, but you can still only play 4 years of VHSL sports. Once you enroll as a freshman, your 4 year clock starts, so you better reclass in elementary or middle school.

Better hope you were born at the right time too because if you reclass and turn 19 before August 1st of your senior year, you're ineligible.

With the new VHSL rules, parents are going to have to make the reclass and transfer decisions before the 8th grade year so their kid is enrolled at the proper feeder middle school. That new 365 day ban is going to hit some kids like a freight train if they do this wrong.

It's kind of funny to see the super seniors at St. James - kids that reclassed in middle school then played 4 years in a VHSL public school, then reclassed again and went to the St. James after their public school senior season.

Crazy an athlete could hypothetically: reclass in middle school, play 4 years VHSL, reclass again and transfer to a private school, go to prep school, play 9 games in college & redshirt, then play 4 more years. Graduating college at 25-26.