The Western Valley District will not join the Central Region, region chairman Chad Knowles said. The district is not interested in joining the Richmond-area schools.

"That was a good thing to hear from our standpoint," Knowles said. "That alleviated a lot of fear."

The Western Valley District includes William Fleming (Roanoke), Franklin County, Halifax, Patrick Henry (Roanoke) and George Washington (Danville) and is a member of the Group AAA Northwest Region.

They are an island in their region, which mainly includes Fredericksburg and northern Virginia schools. Because there are no schools of comparable size near the Western Valley, they often travel three or four hours to play other Northwest Region schools. Moving them to the Central Region would have shortened their trip by an hour or so.

"It didn't really solve any of their problems," Knowles said. "They would still have rigorous travel. They need to play down in everything but football. That's the only way to solve their problems."

William Fleming and George Washington, the two smallest schools in the district with enrollments under 1,600, may drop to Group AA so they can play more schools in their corner of the state.

The other three schools might play AA schools in sports other than football. In football, they would keep their Group AAA schedule.

The Richmond city schools have requested redistricting. The VHSL suggested moving them to Group AA and replacing them with the five Western Valley schools.

The Central Region wasn't too fond of adding schools to the region that are three hours from Richmond. Right now, the longest trip, from Patrick Henry to Dinwiddie, is only about an hour and 15 minutes.

The city schools have requested they stay in the Central Region. So any redistricting would most likely not involve new schools not already in the region.

Proposals will be discussed Nov. 29 at a meeting of the Redistricting and Reclassification committee. On Feb. 2, a plan will be sent from the R&R Committee to the Executive Committee for approval.

Knowles said the region will also discuss playoff expansion, but not until January after redistricting has been sorted out.