Thirteen high schools are shifting allegiance from the massive Southern Section to the CIF-Central Section. The move has been in the works for a year and was ratified by the Central Section unanimously on Tuesday.
The 13 schools are all located in the northernmost territory of the CIF-SS near San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles. Among them are Arroyo Grande and Righetti, schools whose water polo programs have excelled state-wide in the last decade.
The move may signal movement toward reallocating schools concentrated in the highly competitive, 600-plus member Southern Section. The section occupies an area estimated to cover 40,000 square miles, from San Luis Obispo County in the north to South Orange County and eastward heading to the Nevada border. It is by far the largest of the California Interscholastic Federations’ 10 sections.
The 13 local schools will join the much smaller [Central Section] currently made up of 102 schools in the San Joaquin Valley — with most coming from Fresno, Bakersfield and Clovis — starting in the 2018-19 school year…
The move went largely unopposed by school and section administrators who felt it would give their teams a better chance to compete and save money on travel, among other benefits.
