Steffler makes debut on CIF Board of Managers

Marc Steffler, who lives in Fallbrook but who works as a principal in the San Marcos Unified School District, made his debut on the CIF Board of Managers as the San Marcos representative October 16.

“It was good. I felt like a small fish in a really big pond,” Steffler said of his first Board of Managers meeting.

Steffler is the principal of the San Marcos Unified School District’s alternative schools. The normal CIF Board of Managers representative, director of student services Bob Harman, was on vacation.

“It was very professional,” Steffler said of his first CIF meeting, also noting that it progressed faster than he expected.

The agenda on the CIF Board of Managers meeting included presenting the CIF San Diego Section Coach of the Year awards for each sport to the recipients. “I thought it was neat that there were coaches honored today,” Steffler said. “The more we can do that, the better.”

Some of those coaches returned to the school where they had once been athletes. “To have an athlete come back who was a player there who can contribute at the coaching level, that’s fantastic,” Steffler said.

The agenda also included the creation of the Frontier League which is comprised of schools not already in a conference, requests from schools in a conference which does not have specific sports to join other conferences for those sports, and applications from two private schools to join the CIF.

The application from The Rock Academy was accepted while the first reading of the application from Christian Liberty Academy resulted in the CIF’s desire to investigate the school to ensure that proper facilities existed.

During the debate on the ability of Christian Liberty to secure facilities, it was mentioned that interpretation of the state Education Code may require public school districts to allow charter and private schools the use of the school district facilities.

A CIF committee to explore the issue will be created once CIF Board of Managers members make decisions on committee participation.

“It’s going to be a very big issue, bigger than what they were anticipating,” Steffler said. “That’s new ground for schools.”

Christian Liberty is within the boundaries of the San Marcos Unified School District, as is Sierra Madre Academy, a Catholic school not affiliated with the Diocese.

“If they have a right to use our facilities, those facilities are going to get stretched,” Steffler said. “There needs to be a real good look at how that needs to be metered out.”

The San Marcos Unified School District also includes San Marcos High School and Mission Hills High School.

Steffler’s past service as the principal of Fallbrook High School included two CIF championships. The Warriors won the CIF Division I football championship in 2000 and the CIF Division I girls cross-country championship in 2001.