St. Margaret’s effort to not be placed in the Coast View Athletic Association goes to the CIF Southern Section Council on Thursday.
St. Margaret’s, a private school in San Juan Capistrano, has appealed its placement in the Coast View Athletic Association that includes large south county schools like Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Tesoro and Trabuco Hills. St. Margaret’s would prefer to be placed in the Orange Coast League that includes five public schools including Orange and Santa Ana and one private school, Calvary Chapel.
New league structures will be in place for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years.
The CIF-SS Council is the section’s legislative branch. It includes almost 100 voting members, most of them representatives of CIF-SS leagues. Thursday’s meeting, at The Grand in Long Beach, is the first of three CIF-SS Council meetings this school year and the first to be held in person since the 2019-20 school year.
If the Council supports St. Margaret’s appeal Orange County principals must restart the process of placing schools in leagues. If the Council denies the appeal St. Margaret’s would join the Coast View group of 10 schools that is divided into the Sea View and South Coast leagues with league membership differing by sport. Dana Hills is in the Coast View Athletic Association for all sports except football for which Dana Hills is in the Pacific Coast Conference that is divided into the Pacific Hills and Pacific Valley leagues.
St. Margaret’s rational for its appeal is that with an enrollment of 470 it is much smaller than the Coast View schools that have enrollments ranging from 2,083 to 3,043 students, and that competitive equity-wise St. Margaret’s is not a good in the Coast View group.
