6A Conference region chairs cranked out the initial region placement for the coming two-year block on Tuesday morning with several changes involving schools and a tweak to postseason qualifying.

The official release of initial conference and region alignments for 2018-2020 for all conferences -- 6A-1A -- will be posted by the Arizona Interscholastic Assocation on Wednesday afternoon. 

Some factoids from 6A's gathering:

Based on enrollment figures supplied by member schools Oct. 1, 6A began with 42 schools to place in regions. Buena High was on that list, but on Wednesday successfully appealed out of 6A and into 5A to drop the number to 41.

Of the 41 schools left, six are new to 6A (all moving up from 5A) for the next two-year block pending possible appeals. New are Shadow Ridge, Liberty, Chaparral, Carl Hayden, Camelback and Queen Creek. Schools moving down from 6A to 5A are Gilbert, Sunnyside, Central, Rincon/University, Desert Mountain, Horizon and Millennium.

Carl Hayden and Camelback presented an appeal to 6A to move out of 6A and down to 5A. it was approved. Carl Hayden and Camelback now have to appeal to 5A for inclusion in that conference. 

The 6A conference committee reworked several of its seven regions -- same number as the 2016-2018 block. The regions are Premier, East Valley, Central, Desert Valley, Metro, Yuma and Southwest.

6A also voted -- beginning with the next two-year block -- to not grant automatic berths to region champs in team sports. That means beginning with the 2018-2019 school year in 6A, the top 16 teams in football and top 24 in all other team sports will qualify for postseason (teams 17-24 qualify for play-in games against the 9-16 teams). No more bumping of higher-ranked schools.

After conference and region initial placements are posted, schools have until Oct. 24 to submit conference and/or region appeals to the conference committees. The conference committees will hear those appeals Oct. 25-31 with updated placements posted online by the AIA on Oct. 31.

Schools denied appeals at the conference level will have from Nov. 1 -7 to a final appeal with AIA executive board at its Novermber meeting on Nov. 13.