Needs to be 6 classes in my opinion ! The state just needs to tell the NCHSAA what they did wrong to bring this on and let the NCHSAA straighten out the money problems and work for the schools and not to profit the NCHSAA. Any time big government gets their paws into anything they screw it up. Leave the NCHSAA alone and just let them know big daddy is watching the money.
Even if it went to six classes with no charters in 1A it would still be a tough situation for the smallest 30 or so schools.
Taking out charter schools from 1A with four classes would put about 105 in each class and a cutoff around 750; doing that with six classes you'd have around 70 per class and a cutoff around 625. Either way, you still have schools playing schools 2 and 3 times their size in 1A. Compare that with what our neighboring states are doing:
TN: six classes in football, roughly 50 schools per class in public school football divisions, 1A ends at 374 (basketball/baseball is 4 classes with 1A ending at 386)
SC: five classes, roughly 50 schools per class, 1A ends at 304 in grades 9-11 (so around 400 total)
GA: eight classes (including separate public/private Class A), around 55 schools per class except 85 in "A Public" (but 25 don't play football), "A Public" capped at 611, but that's misleading because there's a multiplier on "out of zone" students in Georgia now (they count as 2).
Virginia: six classes, around 50 schools in each class, Class 1 (smallest) caps at 453.
So a small school in NC will not only have to beat out twice as many schools as in nearby states, a lot of the schools they have to beat out are several hundred students bigger than the biggest 1A schools in nearby states.
To me, the best solution involves going to six classes with a multiplier that pushes open enrollment schools--not just charter, but magnet, Early College, etc.--that have bigger advantages (bigger population to draw from, etc.) up a class, while leaving smaller, more rural ones that are competitively appropriate for 1A to help keep the cap for 1A down. I don't think the multipliers they came up with this time around are the answer, but I don't like putting into state law that you can't use anything other than ADM right as Georgia and other states are realizing that's an outdated way of doing it.