Committee Opposes Formation of County Section

IRVINE —  An eight-member Section Relations Committee of the California Interscholastic Federation voted Thursday to oppose a proposed Orange County section.

The committee, chaired by Don Bell, principal at Leland High School of the Central Coast Section, voted, 6-2, in opposition of the proposed section of 76 public and private high schools in the county.

That recommendation will now be passed to the State Federated Council, which has scheduled the proposal as an action item at its next meeting on May 8-9 in Burlingame. The council will vote to approve, reject or make modifications on the proposal.

The committee listened to nearly three hours of arguments for and against a section from county administrators and other section representatives and then made its decision after 30 minutes of discussion.

Among the issues that concerned the committee were financing, service to member schools, acceptance of the county’s 15 private schools, governance and the impact on the Southern Section. The county schools are among the 484 member schools in the Southern Section.

Committee members were also concerned about a possible “domino effect,” in which other areas, such as San Bernardino and Riverside counties, could follow the county’s lead and leave the Southern Section.

The county section would be the fifth largest in the state with approximately 106,000 students. The Southern Section would drop to 408 schools but would remain the largest in the state.

Several administrators of small private schools in the county voiced strong opposition to the proposed section and told the committee they would prefer to remain in the Southern Section.

“The financial barrier alone should kill this thing (county section),” said Dave Rolph, superintendent for Calvary Chapel.

Said William McKinley, superintendent for Whittier Christian High: “There is no concrete plan for budget or financing. No plans have been made for leaguing or the playoffs. It’s all pure speculation at this time.”

Barbara Wilson, who authored a feasibility study for a county section, said the conviction of the county’s 15 public school superintendents “grows stronger day by day.”

James Fleming, superintendent for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, argued that increased travel time for Southern Section playoff games and an opportunity for local control in governance were good reasons for supporting the county section.

“We have good lead time of two years with three summers in which we can get a section off the ground,” Fleming said. “Granted, there are some concerns with the private sector, but we believe we can solve those problems in the next couple of years.”

Fleming also criticized a recent Southern Section survey of its member principals in which 54% polled said they did not favor a county section. Fleming noted that 13 of the county’s 15 superintendents supported the section.

“It was an attempt to drive a wedge between the principals and the superintendents,” Fleming said. “Any way you look at it, it (survey) was wrong.”

Wilson thought the survey played a big factor in the committee’s decision and criticized Southern Section administrators for conducting the survey at this time.

“I made an offer to conduct a survey and was told at a Southern Section general council meeting that it wasn’t necessary,” she said. “I was trying to do this in a non-adversarial manner. I still have 500 surveys sitting on my desk at home.”

When asked her opinion of the Southern Section’s survey, Wilson said, “I wish they would have done it cleanly. The Southern Section office has incredible power over its member schools. If I were a principal, I would have been careful how I responded. I think the committee put its trust in this hearing on the results of that questionnaire.”

Despite Wilson’s objections to the survey, committee member Augie Herrera, principal of Wilmington Banning, said he was leery of the county superintendents’ presence at the meeting.

“The wrong people came to us today,” he said. “I see no ground swell that the principals, league representatives, athletic directors or coaches want this (county section) to happen. What we saw today was an example of top-gun management.”