Most of the high schools on the South Coast will be paying close attention to the actions of the Oregon School Activities Association Executive Board at its quarterly meeting Monday.

Among the action items for the board are possible changes to classification for schools for the coming school year.

Two years ago, the board switched the state from four classifications to six, setting off a wide variety of changes at the start of the current four-year time block. A new Classification and Districting Committee will begin work toward the next four-year block in the fall of 2008.

Traditionally, the board has been resistant to making changes within time blocks except in extreme circumstances.

“The concept of the four-year time block is stable league alignments,” said OSAA Assistant Executive Director Mike Wallmark. “It’s only in unusual circumstances that the board will make a move.”

That said, Wallmark also cautioned, “If they are going to make a move, it’s more likely they’ll do it now (midway through the time block).”

That’s why the South Coast schools will be curious about the meeting Monday. Possible changes could impact three of the four leagues with coast schools. In addition, Pacific is one of a handful of schools that automatically will be reviewed because its average enrollment for the 2006-07 school year — the number OSAA uses to determine classifications — was above the limit for Class 1A.

Pacific dropped into the Class 1A Skyline League two years ago in part because the school’s enrollment is expected to continue to drop to levels well below the upper limit for the classification, and because the school is geographically isolated from Class 2A schools — the nearest schools in Class 2A are Riddle and Oakland in the Roseburg area.

Except in instances where a school is significantly above the limit and growing — such as happened last year when Cascade Christian was moved to Class 3A and into the Sunset Conference — the Executive Board has seldom moved schools during time blocks. Cascade Christian was the only school moved last year.

This year, Sunset Conference schools will be closely watching what happens because two other schools could move into the league.

Rogue River has requested to drop from Class 4A to Class 3A and join the league. School officials visited with league officials earlier this fall.

“They’ve been to us and talked about the potential of being admitted to the Sunset Conference,” said Coquille athletic director Dan Cumberland. “Our answer is we’d pretty much look at them at the end of the (four-year) cycle.”

The league’s coastal schools have struggled to adjust to the increased travel with Cascade Christian in the league — the trip to play the Challengers in Medford is 31⁄2 hours one way for Coquille, and longer for most of the other league schools.

“That is a serious impact on transportation budgets and time of students out of school,” Cumberland said.

Rogue River would add another trip for those schools, and one of the other schools under review Monday is St. Mary’s of Medford, which is over the upper limit for Class 2A and also could be moved into Class 3A and the Sunset Conference.

The coastal schools are hoping in two years, when the next time block is approved, a new Class 3A league will be formed with Rogue River, Cascade Christian, St. Mary’s, Lakeview and, possibly, Illinois Valley. Lakeview, like Pacific, is playing down a classification because of geographic isolation even though it is well over the upper limit for Class 2A — Lakeview had an average 260 students in the 2006-2007 school year and the limit is 235. Illinois Valley, meanwhile, is not far above the Class 3A limit, and could see an enrollment drop that would allow it to move down a classification.

While Pacific expects to stay in the Skyline League, the league could gain another school if a request by North Douglas to drop to Class 1A is approved. North Douglas, which is located in Drain and is under the Class 1A upper limit, could be placed in the Skyline League, which includes Elkton, like North Douglas a school on the State Highway 38 corridor.

The other South Coast school with high interest in Monday’s meeting is Marshfield, which joins the rest of the Midwestern League awaiting word on whether Marist will be joining the conference next fall.

Of the eight schools in the state that have asked to be moved a classification, Marist is the only one requesting to go up. The private school in Eugene currently competes in the Class 4A Sky-Em League and presents a unique case, Wallmark said.

“It’s the first time in my 20 years (with OSAA) that a school has requested to play up in the middle of a time block,” he said. “It’s a unique request. The board doesn’t have a precedent to turn to in this case.”

At the start of a time block, the board automatically approves requests of any schools that want to play up a classification — something typical among the state’s larger private schools.

Since it’s the middle of the time block, and since the six current schools of the Midwestern League voted unanimously against the move at this time, Marist’s request could be denied.

Marshfield athletic director Greg Mulkey said the league is not entirely opposed to Marist coming in.

“What it really came down to is we, as a league, felt like this was not the right time,” Mulkey said. “One major reason is that would give us a seventh team and the OSAA would not necessarily promise us a fourth playoff spot (in team sports).”

The other big reason to oppose the move now is because of scheduling. The league already has scheduled many of the sports for the next school year, and in football would have to work a bye for each school into the league schedule with an odd number of teams.

Marist also would come with positives, Mulkey said, including the ability to get away from the triple round robin the league uses for basketball, baseball and softball and back to where teams play each other just twice each. Also, as a private school, Marist likely would be competitive in all sports.

“Even though they’re moving up another division, they’re still a very respectable program, especially in sports like tennis, golf and soccer,” Mulkey said.

In theory, the Midwestern League could grow by two schools. Cottage Grove is over the upper enrollment limit for Class 4A and the school will undergo an automatic review.

Marshfield officials fear that if Cottage Grove and Marist both move up in two years, the Coos Bay school will be pushed to the Southern Sky Conference, which currently has just five schools — Crater, Eagle Point, Ashland, Mazama and Klamath Union.

They don’t have to worry about that next week, because no matter what the board decides to do with Marist and Cottage Grove, it is not allowed to move schools to other leagues within the same classification, Wallmark said.

“There is not an avenue to make a shift in a league to balance it out better,” he said. “That’s by intent. The hope is these time blocks are going to be consistent.”

The state’s schools will learn Monday if that goal means no switches for the 2008-09 school year.