McKay’s Jamer Silva (80) jumps up with teammate Cyrus Mora (5) to celebrate a touchdown in a game against Forest Grove on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. The McKay Royal Scots won the game 43-0.

​Faced with an opportunity to move down a level in the upcoming OSAA reclassification and redistricting, McKay High School officials started a conversation within the school and around the community with one simple question: What is best for McKay?

“We listen to them, and we want to do what’s best for our kids, always,” McKay principal Sara LeRoy said. “So their voice is really important in our decision.”

The response was overwhelming, and McKay made a decision to stay at the state’s highest classification in the Greater Valley Conference.

“We heard a pretty unified voice,” said Jerimy Kelley, McKay’s athletic director. “They thought it was best we stay at 6A, and we supported them with that.”

LeRoy agreed.

“We saw the merit in both staying up and going down, and we wanted to hear what our community said,” LeRoy said. “And they had a strong voice to say, ‘stay up.’ So we are listening to our community and supporting them.”

McKay is one of two Salem-Keizer public high schools to meet the OSAA’s four criteria for dropping down to a lower classification, along with North Salem High School, which decided to play down a level in the 2018-22 time block.

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Those four criteria are:

• More than 50 percent of its students must be eligible to receive a free or reduced-price lunch.
• The school’s team sports — football, volleyball, soccer, basketball, baseball and softball — must have finished in the bottom 50 percent of the final OSAA power rankings at least 75 percent of the time the previous three years.
• The school’s teams must have finished in the bottom 20 percent of the final rankings at least 50 percent of the time.
• The school’s teams must have had a winning percentage of 25 percent or less at least 40 percent of the time.

Before making a decision, school officials wanted to hear from voices within the McKay community.

“We saw merits on both sides, and at that point decided we wanted to hear what our community wanted to say,” Kelley said. “So we talked to teachers, to the music and band teachers, to coaches. We talked to kids, we talked to the community, the booster club.”

Dean Sanderson, McKay’s boys basketball coach, supports the school’s decision to stay at the highest level.

“Jerimy Kelley and Sara LeRoy did a good job of inviting the community to have a voice in it. It allowed people that care about the community, and in particular the athletic program, to come in and have a say in it,” Sanderson said. “I think you’re starting to see a little more consistency in the staff and it feels like it’s important again to the school, and I guess I just wanted to see that continue without a distraction. The traditional rivalries would be lost, and that’s obviously a negative (to moving down a level). So that was my take on it — let’s look in the mirror and continue to fix the issues that are fixable at McKay. I think that’s happening. It’s a slow process, but that was my take on that.”

McKay’s head coach Dean Sanderson watches the second quarter of a game against McMinnville on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017, at McKay High School. The No. 10 Royal Scots secured a 80-79 home victory over No. 11 McMinnville.

Kelley said that in general, the McKay coaches agree with the decision.

“I would say pretty similar to what Dean is voicing, and they were in support of staying up for the most part,” Kelley said. “There were some of them that definitely saw the merit in both sides, but were supportive of our kids and community and what they wanted.”

One of the most important aspects of the issue is athletic participation. Schools that decide to play down a classification or play independent schedules in specific sports often do so because of low participation rates.

“I think that we always have a focus on trying to get kids to participate,” Kelley said. “We have pretty good numbers in most of our sports. I think if we give kids opportunities, they’ll show up and participate.”

Sanderson said that there are multiple reasons for some of the struggles that McKay has had in sports.

“We’ve struggled, and there are a lot of factors that go into that, some of them are controllable, some of them aren’t. The socioeconomics are not controllable,” Sanderson said. “And that’s a major factor.”

McKay lacks the facility upgrades that some of the other schools in Salem-Keizer enjoy, and Sanderson said that had McKay dropped to a lower classification, some of those issues could be overlooked.

“If you go to West Salem or you go to Sprague, and then you come to McKay and you compare those facilities with what our kids are competing with, it’s night and day,” Sanderson said. “And that has to be addressed. My concern with moving down to 5A is that it would take the pressure off of doing that.”

To give themselves a chance at being successful, Sanderson said that McKay needs to have consistency and stability among the coaching staffs.

“Running it well, in the individual programs and the athletic program as a whole, where there’s consistency, where they are retaining people, and it’s not just a stepping stone job. And boy, there’s been so much turnover,” Sanderson said. “At a place like McKay, if you get behind, it buries you.”

Sanderson said he sees it getting better at McKay.

“Finding the right leaders, the right coaches and running the athletic program well so those people want to stay is really important,” Sanderson said. “And I do think that’s the direction it’s heading.”