An end to the District of Choice program has the potential to disrupt the athletic department at Oak Park High School.

Should the DOC program not be renewed, Oak Park would be set to lose athletes, coaches and funding for athletic facilities. During a time of growth in the school’s athletic programs, this change could devastate Oak Park’s sports teams.

“With 1,500 kids, we have been killing it. Our teams are having great seasons and doing fabulous,” Assistant Principal Jason Meskis said. “It is very competitive, and everybody is winning championships.”

Last year alone, Oak Park’s sports teams brought home five championships: girls’ tennis, girls’ golf, girls’ lacrosse, boys’ basketball and boys’ volleyball. Additionally, girls’ cross-country competed at a state level.

The school’s athletic programs have seen substantial development in the past 10 years. Many teams have been added — including teams for soccer, lacrosse, and girls’ golf.

The athletic program’s future success, however, lies in the continuation of the District of Choice program. This program allows students to easily leave their home districts and enter Oak Park Unified School District through a lottery system.

Students are randomly selected through the lottery system, regardless of their involvement in athletics. Nevertheless, every team at Oak Park has students from different school districts.

“Anyone can apply to get in through the lottery. It’s not like we can pick and choose,” Meskis said.

School districts are required to be indiscriminate of the students they admit.

“Athletics has no bearing on the lottery for those who enroll in the district,” Athletic Director Ann Pettit wrote in an email.

The program is set to expire in June 2017 and measures to renew it have not yet been successful. If it is not renewed, Oak Park could potentially lose its District of Choice athletes.

“We’d have a hard time competing if we lose that many kids. Then you try to find other smaller schools to play against and it would hurt; it would hurt a lot. [It could] potentially [send us] back to the Tri-Valley League,” Meskis said.

Losing athletes was not part of the plan for Oak Park. The athletic department was looking to grow this year, with plans to add teams for stunt, girls’ sand volleyball and girls’ junior varsity lacrosse. Instead of developing these programs, the department’s growth would diminish.

Athletes would be faced with the challenge of enrolling in new schools.

“You can imagine all of the kids that it affects. I mean, that’s a lot of kids who you’re really putting their whole academic careers up in the air, all of the friends that they have made and if they are playing sports,” Meskis said. “I mean, that’s horrible. You have to go to another school, try out for another team, meet another coach. They probably have kids that have been in the program for three or four years.”

If the situation doesn’t change, OPUSD could lose about $16.6 million in yearly funding.

Generally, Oak Park’s athletic programs are funded independently, receiving funds from the Associated Student Body and the athletic booster club. They also generate their own funds for uniforms and equipment.

The district is still responsible for two aspects of athletics spending: head coaches’ salaries and the upkeep of facilities.

Overall, a decline in the number of students would be the primary issue for sports. Teams cannot exist without enough athletes, so several teams would be cut. Without the DOC program, the athletic department would have difficulty forming full teams each year.

“We struggle to field some teams right now. You can imagine what that would do to our programs,” Meskis said.

Although the DOC program benefits Oak Park and similar schools like Glendora High School and Covina High School, the program does not always receive support from districts of residence — the districts that lose students to the DOC program.

One such school is Azusa High School, in Azusa, California.

“I am totally against it. I’m pretty old-school and I think kids should go to school where they live,” Azusa High School athletic director Sandra Gahring said.

Each year, Azusa High School, which is about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, loses athletes to neighboring District of Choice schools like Glendora High School and Covina High School.

“We have a lot of kids that go out for sports here, but we have lost some really good kids to a couple of other schools,” Gahring said. “We would certainly be better if they stayed.”