CIF Shake-Up May Be on Horizon : High schools: Long-range strategy could give Orange County a separate section.

SAN DIEGO â€”  The California Interscholastic Federation’s City Section could cease to exist in its current form and Orange County could become its own section if one of the models outlined in an interim report that was unveiled before the CIF’s governing body on Friday is eventually adopted.

The report, the culmination of 14 months of compiling data by the CIF Steering Committee, was a rough draft of a far-reaching strategic plan, which when adopted, will consist of a definition of goals and the mission of the CIF, and include a plan for organizing competition in the state.

The earliest that the federated council would vote to adopt a strategic plan would be May, 1994, meaning that actual reorganization is at least two years away.

The report offered three models for restructuring the governance of athletics. The first two simply reconfigured the existing sections by redrawing geographic lines. The third did away with sections entirely, separating the state into four regions. Regions would be subdivided by conferences, and conferences would be subdivided by leagues.

In all models, the three city sections--Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco--were eliminated. They would be absorbed into larger sections or regions.

In the models that reconfigured sections, Orange County became its own section. Currently, Orange County is in the Southern Section.

The restructuring models in the report were not proposals by the steering committee, but rather examples to help the federated council come up with a plan for reorganization.

“They are here for target practice,� said Elissa Maas, an independent consultant hired by the CIF, “for something to look at.�

Still, the maps must have struck fear into the hearts of several members of the federated council, who stand to at least have their jobs redefined--if not eliminated--by the suggested models.

In option “A,� which would consist of eight sections, the 284 high schools in Los Angeles County would have their own section. Ventura and Santa Barbara would be the southernmost counties in a section that extends north along the coast to San Mateo.

In option “B,� which would consist of nine sections, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara would make up one, 321-school section.

In the regionalization model, part of Los Angeles would be grouped with Ventura and part of Santa Barbara in one “Southern� region. Orange County would be grouped with San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial in a ‘Deep South� region.

Specific information about cost for each of the models was conspicuously absent from the interim report. Cost analysis will be one of the next matters taken up by the steering committee.

The CIF has not considered a strategic plan since its inception in 1914.

Hal Harkness, who retired this year after seven years as commissioner of the City Section but remains as a special adviser to the CIF, said a strategic plan and restructuring has been badly needed. “The way it has grown,� Harkness said, “has sort of been like a rock rolling down a hill.�