Membership increased rapidly, and eventually the name of the organization was changed to the "Arkansas Activities Association".

This resulted in a situation in which all-black Stuttgart Holman was to play partially integrated Pine Bluff Southeast, which had been admitted to the AAA in 1966, for the African-American championship.

The AAA refused to allow the title game to take place, on the grounds that Holman was not a member of the association.

Although the word "activities" is used in the name, the AAA is directly responsible only for interscholastic athletics.

Other activities, including music, forensics, and spirit groups, are governed by their own associations affiliated with yet not part of the AAA, who is only responsible for sanctioning the events.

The AAA organizes its member schools by 3-year average daily membership (ADM) in grades 10-12 every two years.

Each classification is organized by rank, as opposed to a minimum threshold, to maintain consistent numbers for each class.

These are further named according to directional area (a pair of class 2A conferences in southwest Arkansas would be the 2A-7 West and 2A-7 East).

The divisions still compete in separate playoffs, but two regional conferences that have previously been exclusive to 7A or 6A now have a mix of 7A and 6A schools so as to save on transportation expenses during the regular season.

Prior to 2006, the activity district number was placed in front of the class for conference names (i.e. 4AAA, 7AA-East).

These naming conventions changed as well, but many local media outlets still placed the district number before the class (3-4A instead of 4A-3).

Each spring, the Arkansas Governor's Quiz Bowl Association holds the state tournament finals for each classification.

[5] To decide a winner of each classification, each conference sends the top 4 teams within them to attend the state playoffs.

The two remaining teams will play at a set location to decide the state champion in the classification.

The state competitive cheer championships are held annually in November or December.