The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association shook up the high school sports landscape in October by voting to increase the number of classes in football from four to six.

Butler County schools had a chance to see where they stood Monday when the PIAA released enrollment numbers for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years.

Nine of the 13 area schools will move classifications — eight of which will go up at least one class — for next football season.

Summit Academy, which will drop from AA to A, is the only school moving down.

Seeing the numbers provided Mars athletic director and football coach Scott Heinauer with relief.

The Planets, who were moved up to Quad-A, were two boys short of playing 5A.

“We're very fortunate and we're happy being in 4A,” Heinauer said. “There's going to be a lot of travel, but we're used to it. Some of the other sports, they aren't used to it. If you look at the other sports' sections, we're pretty close and don't travel far. I don't have a grasp on everything, but travel is the first concern.”

Butler and Seneca Valley both moved up two classes to 6A. There will be 13 schools — provided no one chooses to play up, which schools have until Dec. 15 to decide — that play in the largest classifications in the WPIAL.

Schools have until next month to decide if they are going to play up or not. Aliquippa, which has a Class A enrollment, is expected to play up in the new system as well.

There are 19 schools —including Knoch — in the WPIAL slated to play in 4A next season.

“It'll be hard, depending on how they break it up with what to do after that,” Heinauer said of the new alignment. “How many teams are going to get into the playoffs? Sixteen or eight? The WPIAL has a lot of numbers to digest to figure out where the heck everyone is going to go.”

Other districts will face similar quandaries. While Karns City will climb to 3A, Moniteau will remain in Class AA. The only other teams that would be in the Gremlins' classification in District 9 will be Punxsutawney and St. Marys.

Grove City will go to Quad-A and Slippery Rock to AAA in District 10.

Freeport (AAA) and Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic (AA) will also move up.

Two schools that have considered co-opting, Union and A-C Valley, both remained in Class A. Golden Knights coach Dave Louder is confident they could co-op and still be in Class A.

When schools combined, one school only has to count half their enrollment.

The Falcons male enrollment for the next cycle is 91 and Union's is 70. Combined it would put them under the 148 threshold for Class A.

“You look at Brockway and Dubois Central Catholic, when that rule went into that effect, they went from Double A to Single A,” Louder said. “We'd be a Single A school like Clarion and Ridgway, which also do co-ops.”

No decision has been made about the co-op yet.