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June 10, 2026
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
This is the first in a series of stories on the new Suburban Valley Conference which involves 20 schools from the 605 League, Del Rio League, Gateway League and Mid-Cities League. The SVC will begin with the 2026-2027 school year and over the next month and a half, I will be getting reactions from the athletic directors of the area schools on what it has been like the past year and the effects the new SVC will have on their respective schools for the upcoming school year and beyond.
The 2026-2027 school year begins in two months and with that comes a major change on the athletic side. Gone is the six-member 605 League of Artesia High, Cerritos High, John Glenn High, Oxford Academy, Pioneer High and Whitney High, which has been around since the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.
Also making changes is the Gateway League and Mid-Cities League, which says goodbye to Dominguez High, but keeps Bellflower High, Downey High, Firebaugh High, Gahr High, La Mirada High, Lynwood High, Mayfair High, Norwalk High, Paramount High and Warren High.
On top of that, four of the five former Del Rio League members-California High, La Serna High, Santa Fe High and Whittier High-will join the aforementioned schools to be part of the new 20-member Suburban Valley Conference.
Monthly meetings with the athletic directors and principals of the 20 schools were conducted over the past year to get affairs in place for the new school year, ranging from schedule making, to transportation, to putting together a new league constitution and other pertinent information.
While there are still a few things to be ironed out, master league schedules have already been made for the fall, winter and spring sports with the league placings from this past school year accounting for 75 percent of where a team from a certain sport will be situated in for the 2026-2027 season and the other 25 percent from two seasons ago. For the most part, teams will be placed into either the new Gateway League, or top league, as some may call it, the new Mid-Cities League, the new Rio Vista League or the new 605 League. Not every school will have a team for every sport and because of that, you may see either two or three leagues for a sport.
The first sport to begin league action is girls flag football, which gets underway on Aug. 26, which is two weeks after school begins for the area institutions. Once each athletic season has been completed, the league opponents for the 2027-2028 season will be determined as it is believed that the last place teams will switch to the next league and the league champion will move to the next higher league to keep things as competitive as possible.
Listed below are the league configurations for most sports for the 2026-2027 athletic season with boys and girls wrestling, girls beach volleyball and boys and girls track and field to work out some final details. The debate regarding track and field stems from going back to a dual meet format or staying with the cluster meets.
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