By Michael Letendre 

What high schools have the biggest enrollment in Connecticut? 

Have you ever wondered that? 

Well, the CIAC website has a breakdown of every class of all the boys and girls that attend high school in the state which was collected to determine the divisions for the 2021 scholastic sports seasons. 

So, what school has the largest enrollment of boys and girls in our state? 

I bet a lot of TBE readers would say Southington and that pick would make a ton of sense, judging from the population and the fact that there is only one public school in that large town. 

But Southington does not have the biggest enrollment in the state. 

In fact, Southington – in terms of both boys and girls – has the eighth highest enrollment. 

And the more surprising fact is a town like Southington has fewer than a thousand boys attending its high school. 

Eight other schools have a higher enrollment of boys than Southington does. 

Here’s the list of Connecticut’s top ten CIAC schools in terms of total enrollment: 

School                         Total Boys      Total Girls      Overall 

Danbury                      1787                1646                3433 

Greenwich                   1366                1388                2754 

New Britain                 1319                1161                2480 

Westhill                       1230                1161                2391 

Trumbull                      1114                1116                2230 

Stamford                     1088                1028                2116 

Norwich Free Acd.     982                  1132                2114 

Southington                972                  1023                1995 

Glastonbury                915                  1008                1923 

Norwalk                      1013                886                  1899 

I found it interesting that New Britain and Westhill had the same number of girls at 1161.  

But overall, Danbury gets the prize with a total enrollment of 3433 which is 679 students more than runner-up Greenwich (2754). 

Now, all ten of those schools are classified as LL under the CIAC guidelines. 

In fact, the top-28 schools in Connecticut – in terms of overall enrollment – are all Class LL programs. 

Cheshire, with an enrollment of 1369 students, is the largest Class L school in the CIAC for the upcoming school year. 

After digesting those figures, let’s look at our local public schools in the city. 

Both Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern are in the top-50 of enrollment in the state. 

Central is 43^rd in the state while Eastern is a little behind at 49^th overall. 

Here’s the enrollment breakdown for both Bristol schools: 

School                         Total Boys      Total Girls      Overall 

Bristol Central            605                  624                  1229 

Bristol Eastern            545                  580                  1125 

Once again, girls rule as Bristol has a public-school enrollment of 1204 total females to 1150 total males. 

However it’s sliced, those numbers see Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern as Class L competitors. 

For football classification, Class L is set-up for programs between 520-677 boys – the division in which Central and Eastern compete.

But coops and tri-ops can have more of those boys and still compete in Class L. 

For example, the Northwest United program, consisting of host Wolcott Tech, Nonnewaug, and Wamogo, are a Class L competitor that have a combined enrollment of 867 boys. 

Wolcott Tech has 410 boys, and the other two schools make up the rest. 

Would it be fair to just ship that group up to Class LL – classified as at least 678 enrolled boys? 

It wouldn’t be fair and letting those programs compete at the Class L level seems to work for everyone. 

‘Schools of Choice’ are a different matter entirely and the CIAC has guidelines in terms of placement of those schools. 

Here’s what the CIAC website says about CIAC classifications: 

“In order to provide a level playing field in state tournaments, the CIAC classifies schools in most sports based on their boys or girls enrollment. When determining enrollments for classification the numbers from October 1st of the previous school year are used. 

The schools listed on the “Schools of Choice” tab are subject to success in tournament adjustments in sports which use such a factor. A school is defined as a school of choice for a gender if it has 25 or more students enrolled of that gender from outside of its geographical area.” 

‘Schools of Choice’ include Avon (girls only), Capital Prep (both boys and girls), Edwin O. Smith (girls), Middletown (girls), Simsbury (boys), Southington (boys and girls), and Weaver (boys and girls) to name a few. 

The system might not be perfect but the CIAC’s enrollment and ultimate classifications is a credible way to keep the playing field as level as possible for scholastic sports in Connecticut.