New regions created without much controversy

The initial proposal left Riverton in a west-side Salt Lake County region and had Herriman traveling to Utah County. Haslam aligned the schools simply using addresses from north to south, which he said "eliminated politics" from the equation.

In 4A, Kearns moves from 5A to 4A and joins Region 6, which is Bountiful, Clearfield, Cyprus, Woods Cross, East and Highland in football and adds Judge in all other sports.

Washington and Iron counties were accommodated on some requests — putting Cedar back in a region with the St. George schools for all sports and moving Canyon View to 3A for football — but it means they have seven schools, and only four qualify for the playoffs. The three other non-football 3A regions will qualify four of five schools for the playoffs.

The 1A non-football regions were reconfigured after a meeting of 1A principals, and Region 17 was divided into east/west divisions. The east division is Altamont, Duchesne, Manila, Rich and Tabiona, while the west is Concordia, Legacy, Oakley and St. Joseph. Uintah River will compete in that region as an associate member.

Region 18 is made up of Dugway, ICS, Mt. Vernon, Tintic, Wendover, West Ridge (with Eskdale, Utah School for Deaf and Blind and West Desert as associate members). Region 19 is Green River, Monticello, Monument Valley, Navajo Mountain, Pinnacle and Whitehorse. Region 20 is Bryce Valley, Cross Creek, Diamond Ranch, Escalante, Milford, Panguitch, Piute, Valley and Wayne.

There may be some tweaks to 1A as they determine how playoffs will work and whether the larger regions want to divide into divisions, as well.

The alignment, other than some 1A issues, is final after Thursday's vote and goes into effect for the 2013 school year. A new group will begin the next alignment discussions in January, and they will likely look at whether to go to six classifications in all sports, an idea popular with the state's smallest schools.

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