The Woman Who Has Answers : Consultant: Former deputy superintendent, and a champion of girls’ athletics, welcomes challengers to her study.

Barbara Wilson has spent a good part of the past nine months discussing, debating and analyzing the pros and cons of an Orange County Section. She attended meetings, reviewed countless documents and listened to the concerns of principals and administrators county-wide.

Now that her feasibility study is complete--the 87-page document suggests that Orange County is ready for its own section--Wilson says she welcomes challenges from any and all detractors.

“I hope somewhere along the line someone will really take me to task on this (study),” said Wilson, a private consultant.

“I don’t think anything in government should be easy. I think people should argue and go back and forth. I would be upset if everyone accepted this on face value.”

Accepting something on face value has never been Wilson’s style. She is, associates say, a meticulous, insightful, hard-working individual who never takes the easy route--unless the easy route happens to be the best way to go.

Which wasn’t the case with her feasibility study.

Wilson, a Manhattan Beach resident, was hired to do the study in November by a group of superintendents from county public schools.

It would be difficult to find a more logical choice for the job.

Wilson has 30 years of experience in public education, half of which was at the administrative level. Before starting her consultant practice last year, she was deputy superintendent at Tustin Unified School District for two years.

More importantly, perhaps, Wilson has been a key player with the Southern Section and the state level of the California Interscholastic Federation. She was the first woman to be a member of the section’s Executive Committee and the first woman on the state’s Federated Council.

Since the early 1970s, Wilson served on more than 50 state and section committees. She became known as a champion of girls’ sports, being instrumental in developing the Girls Athletic Assn. in the 1950s. And recently, as a consultant to the CIF, she led the drive to stop a proposal that would allow girls to play on boys’ teams even if a girls’ team already existed in that sport.

“Her work in women’s athletics was second to none,” said Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas, whose organization honored Wilson last year with a gold life pass, allowing her entry to any section event.

Wilson was a member of the Executive Committee when the idea of an Orange County Section was explored in 1980. The feasibility study used at that time, Wilson says, offered valuable insight for her own study.

“Who else would you find out there that knew as much as she did?” said Peter Hartman, the Saddleback Valley Unified School District superintendent who hired Wilson for the study.

Before she accepted the assignment, Wilson said she made it clear to the superintendents that she did not want to be involved if it meant the county’s private and parochial schools would be excluded.

“From the first time I talked to (the superintendents), I said if that is a goal, creating a section without them, then you need to get someone else,” Wilson said.

“I said, ‘I don’t agree with the philosophy, CIF doesn’t agree with the philosophy, and I just wouldn’t do a good job for you.’ ”

Wilson started by re-reading the state CIF constitution and the Southern Section Blue Book. She attended state and section meetings to get input from a variety of sources.

“I began to ask people, ‘If you could start the section over again and change your bylaws, what would you change?’ ” Wilson said. “I spent a lot of time reviewing what already existed in Orange County . . . then began bouncing ideas off different individuals.”

Wilson sent a one-page questionnaire to each county superintendent to determine how strongly they--and their principals--felt about breaking from the Southern Section.

Wilson said she won’t reveal the exact results of the questionnaires until she meets with the superintendents Aug. 20, but that the initial return was “very, very positive,” on the idea of having a county section.

Wilson’s study highlights several topics, including proposed governance structure, sample budget--an attempt she describes as “a shot in the dark”--and the positives and negatives of forming a county section.

“I had to struggle to come up with the negatives,” she said.

One issue that made both sides of the positive/negative list was that of litigation.

“There was quite a bit of concern in the beginning that Orange County, being what it is in terms of the types of people and what they’re used to, that we would get a fair amount of litigation problems,” Wilson said.

“On the other hand, (some said) we’ll work out problems rather than go to court. We’ll hire the kinds of people who’ll work carefully with each other. And we’ll work out problems rather than go to court.”

That may be an idealistic view, but Wilson says through her research she was encouraged by how well the superintendents worked with each other.

“They were fair and objective and not married to anything,” said Wilson, who was paid $2,500 for her work on the study.

Wilson says that even if the superintendents choose not to form their own section-- she will be satisfied.

“I think it would be very exciting (to have an Orange County Section) and I think it might be the right time to do it,” Wilson said.

“But adopting it or not adopting it will, in my opinion, not in any way verify what I’ve done. I just think they should study it carefully and then do what’s best for them.”