I dislike all of this "leveling the playing field" nonsense. Whatever happened to embracing a challenge and working your butt off to beat your opponents. This whiny attitude of other team's winning too much and need bumped up does a disservice to the teams that do things the right way regardless of socioeconomic factors, especially at the small school level.
Pioneer, as well as a number of other teams, had their heads caved in by LCC for several years in a row in the tournament. Finally in 2016 when they beat them, it was an awesome moment for our team and community that really sparked a good few year run for us. Pioneer has a garbage field, old equipment and little administrative support. They also have ~ 50% Free and Reduced Lunch rate, but in general have been successful since the late 90's. Their feeder program runs the same offense from youth league through high school and several high school coaches also help with the younger levels.
Like every small school we will have ebbs and flows of talent, but in general we are successful due to the system we have in place. There are many examples of other teams/communities doing this across the state. It is a shame that instead of rewarding this "commitment to consistence", we instead reward the ineptitude of other programs by enabling this woe is me attitude.
If you don't want to get beat, get better.