St. Aloysius has been a member of the Mississippi High School Activities Association since its earliest days.

No longer.

St. Al, along with fellow Catholic school Greenville-St. Joseph, will end a nearly 90-year affiliation and join the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools immediately. The MAIS executive committee approved membership for the three schools by a unanimous vote late Tuesday night.

Maureen Smith, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Jackson, said Natchez Cathedral will have a meeting Wednesday afternoon to make a final decision, while Madison-St. Joseph will remain in the MHSAA. The Diocese oversees St. Al, Cathedral, Greenville-St. Joe and Madison-St. Joe.

The move for St. Al and Greenville-St. Joe is effective immediately. A meeting will be held with coaches and officials from the schools and the MAIS Friday in Pearl to work out scheduling and other transitional issues.

The switch was made in the wake of last week’s ruling by the MHSAA to ban out-of-state students from all sanctioned sports and activities.

“There is a sadness on our part, because we’ve been there forever. We leave with no bitterness or rancor. I understand why (the MHSAA) did what they did. But we did it with the idea that we have to give every student an opportunity,” St. Al principal Buddy Strickland said. “We had to do what we had to do.”

St. Al will compete in Class AAA in the MAIS. Its district has not been determined, but is expected to be along the I-20 corridor and include Central Hinds, Hartfield Academy and Manchester Academy.

Vicksburg’s other MAIS school, Porters Chapel Academy, competes in Class AA.

As a member of the MHSAA, St. Al played Vicksburg High and Warren Central in a number of sports such as baseball, softball, tennis and golf. Vicksburg Warren School District athletic director Lum Wright said Vicksburg and Warren Central have played MAIS schools in the past, and would consider continuing that relationship.

“We’ll adjust our schedules and wish them well,” Wright said. “I wish them the best. They’re a part of our community. I have a lot of friends who have gone to St. Al and sent their children there, and I want to see them do well.”

The decision to switch associations came after last week’s MHSAA ruling banning out-of-state students from participating in all sanctioned activities. St. Al has 14 such students — 12 of whom have been enrolled in the school since kindergarten — while Greenville-St. Joe has about 50 and Cathedral has 78.

The Catholic schools held town hall meetings over the past week to come up with recommendations on a course of action. Strickland said the options included a lawsuit the schools were unlikely to win, staying the course and alienating a number of families within the school, or moving to the MAIS.

“I think there was a clear consensus among our stakeholders familiar with the law, that we could not litigate this and win,” Strickland said. “There was a realization on the part of our stakeholders about where was the best option for a level playing field and an opportunity for every child on the field.”

Strickland said the consensus of the more than 100 people at Monday’s meeting in the school cafeteria was to switch affiliations. That was sent on to Bishop Joseph Kopacz at the Diocese of Jackson, which oversees St. Al, Cathedral, Greenville-St. Joe and Madison-St. Joseph, and he approved the move Tuesday.

The MAIS executive committee then voted on and approved it Tuesday night.

“The reason we made the request and it was granted, was that every parent that sends a child out of choice to our school, does so with the expectation of participating in every school activity. That’s a responsibility that we take seriously,” Strickland said. “One of our parents from Louisiana said, as a church, we can’t turn our backs on the families that chose to send their children there.”

The MHSAA ruling on out-of-state students was also one in a string of aggressive moves by other MHSAA members toward private and parochial members.

In 2014, a group of Northeast Mississippi schools tried unsuccessfully to introduce a proposal that would have expelled the parochial schools from the MHSAA.

This week, District 5 representatives — again from Northeast Mississippi — introduced legislation that would have put a multiplier on private schools’ enrollment numbers for classification purposes. Each student would have counted for 1.5 students under the proposal, meaning most of the parochial schools would have moved up at least one classification if the proposal was approved next year.

“That would have impacted us even further,” Strickland said.

Although there seemed to be a growing rift between the MHSAA’s public and private schools, Strickland stressed there was no bitterness on St. Al’s part and that the move to the MAIS was simply in the best interests of the school and its students.

“Had none of this come up, we’d still be part of the MHSAA. I hate to lose those relationships. We want to be very supportive of what they’re doing. We want to continue those relationships. They have crossover games between MHSAA and MAIS, and we’d absolutely love to play those teams,” Strickland said. “We’re not bitter about leaving. We have no animosity toward the MHSAA.”

The next phase of the move is a logistical nightmare. Schedules that have been finished for months need to be torn up and redone, new procedures and paperwork figured out and transportation dilemmas solved.

Two sports, girls’ soccer and fast-pitch softball, play fall seasons in the MAIS and later in the school year in the MHSAA. They’ll have to scramble to pull themselves together before the season starts next week.

Strickland said the MAIS has promised to cooperate with the Catholic schools to ensure there is full involvement and a smooth transition, but did admit the coming days would be difficult.

“Extremely difficult,” Strickland said. “It is going to be chaotic. But there’s excitement in the chaos.”