The Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board voted Tuesday, Oct. 14, to add flag football as a new Arizona Interscholastic Association sport for the school for fall 2026 and to petition the AIA to move all Sedona sports to the 1A conference from the 2A.
“We’re currently in 2A in everything except football,” SOCSD Superintendent Tom Swaninger said during the board meeting. “We are at the very bottom of 2A, … the student count.” SRRHS is listed with 335 students on the AIA website for academic year 2025-2026.
Heather Isom, the high school’s principal who was sitting in the audience during the meeting, said the graduating class was about 75.
“I think that in pursuit of creating the best environment possible for our student athletes, I think it would be best to petition to go to 1A,” Swaninger said. “Travel is about the same. We looked into that — there’s some trips that are a little bit longer, but there’s some trips that are a little bit shorter.”
He said when the high school moved to 2A about 10 years ago, the school was double the size.
“By no means am I saying that … if you approve this, and if AIA approves this, that we’re going to go into 1A and dominate,” Swaninger said. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that we might have a little bit better chance of being a little bit more competitive.”
Several board members including Swaninger said the school just doesn’t have enough athletes to compete with some of the larger schools in 2A.
This petition doesn’t mean the school will automatically be a 1A school next year, it just means school officials will submit a petition to the AIA for the status, but AIA doesn’t have to accept it.
“Enrollment has continued to decline for several years and with the school bringing back eight-man football, a 1A level sport, this year it seemed the right time to at least petition for 1A status,” Athletic Director Peter Brock subsequently said.
Flag Football
The board also approved on Oct. 14 to add flag football as an option for the 2026 season.
“This does not mean that it would guarantee to have one,” Swaninger said. “It just offers us the ability to offer it … when AIA approves our pursuit of that. I will tell you that it’s one of the most fun sports to watch.”
Flag football would be a fall sport run concurrently with volleyball, soccer, cross country, swim, cheer and tackle football.
“The challenge of this is that right now, it’s really just the bigger schools that are doing this,” Swaninger said. “We don’t have too many real small schools that are doing this, but I just want the option to pursue it to see … if there’s something there with that.”
Flagstaff, Prescott, Mingus Union and Coconino high schools all have flag football teams, although all compete in 4A for flag football.
The smallest conference for flag football for the 2025 season is 3A, according to AZPreps365, which includes teams from Mayer, Page, Tuba City and Monument Valley in the North Region.
“There’s been an interest from students in adding girls flag football for a few years,” Brock said. “Adding this sport would bring a lot of excitement and opportunities for more girls to compete and play a sport. It’s hard to know how flag football would impact other sports like volleyball, but it would be great for the kids to have more options.”
Soccer
Originally on the agenda was a discussion and vote on moving boys and girls soccer from the fall season to the winter season, but Swaninger said he wanted to table it until the board was able to get more opinions from parents, athletes, coaches and stakeholders.
“The unfortunate thing of the timing, we waited a little bit long on this, I think,” Swaninger said. “But I think it’s more important that we be transparent, get input from our stakeholders on this.”
The deadline to petition the AIA to move Sedona’s soccer program from the fall to winter for the 2026 season was Oct. 17.
If flag football is added to the list of fall sports at SRRHS, that would bring the total to nine sports, including girls and boys teams.
“And in the winter, we have basketball. That’s it. That’s all that we have,” Swaninger said.
“So by moving soccer from the fall to the winter, … I also want to point out, transportation is an issue.”
Almost all fall sport teams require buses for their athletes to travel and compete.
“I coached the season when it was in the winter two years in a row,” Governing Board member and former boys soccer coach Sam Blom said.
“It was horrible. First of all, all the games were in Phoenix or Tonopah … the weather was cold for the fans, for the players.”
The transportation was overall much longer for the soccer players back then.
“Two athletic directors ago, when I was asked what my thoughts were moving soccer to the fall, I jumped on it,” Blom said. “I said, ‘yeah, yeah, so much better.’”
Swaninger said the board will hopefully be able to discuss this item again during the meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 4, at 4 p.m. in the Sedona Performing Arts Center.
