Four schools voted to leave the Eastern Connecticut Conference on Thursday, citing the league’s ongoing instability.

Ledyard, East Lyme, New London and Fitch agreed to form the Southeastern Connecticut Athletic Conference (SCAC) as well as a scheduling alliance with the 23-school Southern Connecticut Conference to fill schedules.

Ledyard athletic director Jim Buonocore said the SCAC could begin as soon as the winter of 2016, but would defer to the remaining ECC schools about the departure date.

“The 2015 fall schedules are set (in the ECC) and we will honor them,” Buonocore said. “We are willing to let (the remaining ECC schools) decide when we leave. If they want us to stay through next year and hold us to the current policy, we will do that. We have no problem with that.”

Stonington principal Mark Friese, the spokesperson for ECC principals, said Thursday, “We have no problem keeping (the four exiting schools) here through the 2015-16 school year. I have no ill will against them and would like to work with them. It might be better for everyone to start fresh in the fall of 2016 anyway.”

All ECC principals met Thursday morning to discuss the league’s future. Friese said he learned of the SCAC “before I even drove back to my office.”

“Nobody committed to the ECC long term. Nobody said, ‘we’re all in,’” Friese said. “So the fact that four schools decided to leave doesn’t surprise me. I just didn’t think it would happen this fast.”

Fitch principal Joe Arcarese said of his school’s decision to leave, “As difficult as it was to come to this decision to leave the ECC, it was the right choice for our students and our community. “Our athletes deserve a fair opportunity to compete, and given the current instability in the ECC, we couldn’t be certain that was going to be the case if we stayed.”

Ledyard principal Amanda Fagan said the four founding members of the SCAC would be open to expansion, saying, “Certainly we value the relationships we’ve established over the years with other local schools, and we would welcome the opportunity to build upon some of those relationships in the SCAC as other schools apply to join us.”

The only rivalries SCAC schools are willing to maintain at the moment are Thanksgiving football games. There are no plans as yet to schedule ECC schools in any other sports, meaning, for example, that Waterford won’t be playing East Lyme in anything else but Thanksgiving football, if the schools agreed.

Waterford, Bacon Academy, Stonington and Montville applied to the Shoreline Conference earlier this month, amid nearly a year of turmoil within the ECC. Member schools debated league alignment, scheduling practices, opt outs, and enrollment disparities. In addition, seven northern ECC schools are awaiting word from the North Central Connecticut Conference.

“We have no desire to be the smallest school among all the big ones,” Friese said, alluding to whether Stonington might join the SCAC. “We’d be pretty close to the smallest school. It doesn’t entice me at all.”

Friese said Stonington and other remaining schools have much to discuss. That includes keeping what remains of the league together, now mostly a group of small and medium schools. And Norwich Free Academy.

“I’m open to keeping NFA,” Friese said. “They’ve been great partners in all this for years.”