New NCFCA Regions (UPDATE III)

—–UPDATE 3—–

Somewhere along the line, Alaska was moved to the Region 2 column. Here’s the updated map (Click the image to view full or click here to download the PDF):

—–UPDATE 2—–

Here are some statistics about the new regions that I think provides some perspective:

-3 out of the 10 regions stayed the same (5, 6, 10).
-42 states are in the same regions as last season. That’s 84%.
-The 8 states that did change include Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington.
-A break down of the changes made to those 8 states is as follows:

Arizona (from 4 to 3)
Arkanses (from 4 to 7)
Idaho (3 to 2)
North Carolina (from 8 to 9)
Nevada (from 3 to 2)
New Mexico (from 4 to 3)
Oregon (from 3 to 2)
Washington (from 3 to 2)

-Half of the 8 states that did change were moved from Region 3 to Region 2 –a region that formerly only covered California.
-Region 3 lost 4 states and gained 2 (Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington; Arizona, New Mexico), taking it from 11 states to 9 states

And click here to download a .PDF of the old list and the new list combined with tracked changes.

Finally, the NCFCA board of directors offered this explanation:

In its continuing effort to serve Affiliates, the NCFCA Board has made adjustments to the NCFCA Regional boundaries for the upcoming season. Discussions at all levels of NCFCA leadership have helped establish changes that will bring demographic as well as geographic advantages for the NCFCA Affiliates. We believe that balancing Affiliate demographics will better serve each Region by enabling home school competitors closer access to more tournaments, thus increasing their competitive opportunities and lowering their travel time and expenses.

These changes were discussed with different groups of leaders in the spring, at the National Championship, and it was discussed extensively with the various levels of leadership before the final decision was made recently. The leadership consulted voiced support for these changes.

Please know that the NCFCA Board is very committed to providing the best possible competitive opportunity to NCFCA Affiliates!

—–UPDATE—–

Chris Jeub (of Monument Publishing fame) tweeted the NCFCA’s changes. Last February, I created the following map showing the regions (click all images to view full):

Here’s what the new regions look like (Region 2 is now bright green):

I’m very pleased with these changes. This is almost exactly the changes I thought seemed more reasonable. Two things would I would prefer: (1) I’d like to see number affiliate per state. Obviously, the only way to have proper representative districts is to have population numbers. It still feels like these boundaries are based more on geography than participation (but, I’m more than happy to be proven wrong). (2), I would have preferred Alaska to join the rest of the western states in region 2. It seems very strange to combine Alaska in with the states east of the Rockies.

Those are my only two qualms. Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with the changes.

Click here to download a .PDF of the new map.

For those of you Photoshop lovers who might want to play with it, here is the .PSD file.

Finally, here is a side-by-side of the old an new regions.