Principals Expected to OK North County Realignment

VISTA — The 16 principals whose schools make up the North County Conference are expected to vote today to send Torrey Pines into the 2-A Avocado League and Rancho Bernardo into the 3-A Palomar League.

The principals will get a formal recommendation from the conference’s Releaguing Committee, which has refused to divulge what its recommendation will be. The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at Rancho Buena Vista High School.

The Times has learned that the recommendation will make classroom enrollment the primary factor in determining league placement for participating schools.

Expected enrollment figures project Rancho Bernardo with more than 2,800 students in 1992-93, and Torrey Pines with about 1,800, the 13th highest in the North County.

The new recommendation comes after the State Board of Appeals overturned an initial recommendation that Torrey Pines and Rancho Bernardo switch leagues because of projected enrollment figures.

That recommendation was overturned because the state found the language in the conference by-laws to be ambiguous on the factors determining league placement, which included enrollment, strength of program, rivalries and geography. Torrey Pines boosters appealed their case to the San Diego Section’s Coordinating Council and the Board of Managers before the state finally agreed.

Whatever the new language is, it is expected to finish the matter. Committee chairman Pat Ross, Orange Glen principal, said the nine-member group dealt “with the admonitions of the State Appeals Panel; those are the issues we addressed.”

Ross also said the voting principals have been notified of the recommendation so they wouldn’t be going into today’s meeting without knowing what they were voting on.

Should the recommendation pass, it would then need approval by the Coordinating Council June 3 and the Board of Managers June 17. At that time, Torrey Pines and Rancho Bernardo would switch leagues.

Ross said it was unlikely the recommendation would be rejected, but if it was, “at this late date we would probably go back to the status quo.”