Inglewood Schools: Tale of Troubles

The news last week that county education officials are once again sounding the alarm over Inglewood schools’ financial situation had an all-too-familiar ring.

It was only last fall that the 16,765-pupil Inglewood Unified School District was deemed on the road to fiscal recovery after county officials spent nearly two years straightening out its finances.

Now the county Office of Education, after conducting an audit, is raising new questions about the district’s accounting practices and has ordered the school board to postpone pending employee raises and any other “significant expenditures” until further review of the district’s ledgers is undertaken. Citing inadequate documentation, the county said that “all areas of the district’s finances are potentially in question” and that it could find itself “in an insolvent position.” The county plans to evaluate the district’s books and accounting practices later this month.

The new questions about its financial viability are hardly the only problems plaguing the district. It long has been torn by political infighting on its five-member elected board. Its administration, buffeted by the infighting and dogged by high turnover, has been unable to get a steady enough hand on the tiller to deal effectively with the district’s many issues.

While a badly divided board fights over the April 5 firing of yet another superintendent, parents complain that students’ needs are being overlooked. And, with anywhere from one to three board seats about to change hands in next month’s election, things aren’t likely to get better soon.

“The kids can sense how unstable the district is--it’s like being in a house with parents who are ineffective and disturbed,” said Cindy Giardina, vice president of the Daniel Freeman Elementary School PTA.

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“The district reeks of instability, and our children are the pawns in this big political game,” added Giardina, parent of a third-grader. “It’s keeping the kids from learning.”

The situation in Inglewood is still a far cry from that in Compton, where school officials have had to submit to a state takeover because of the district’s financial and academic failures. And Inglewood is no Richmond, the Bay Area district whose 1991 bankruptcy led to a tough state fiscal-oversight law for districts throughout California. Only court intervention and a $19-million state loan kept Richmond from having to shut its doors six weeks before the end of the school year.

Inglewood does have its bright spots. Achievement test scores at some elementary schools have consistently been above state averages. Last week one of its campuses--Beulah Payne Elementary--was among 225 schools in the state to be named a California Distinguished School, marking the first time a district campus has been tapped for the honor.

But Inglewood has a host of troubles. Achievement gains have been spotty, and high school seniors’ scores on the two most commonly used tests for college admissions were among the lowest in the state last year.

A district-paid independent evaluation of Inglewood’s management and operations last year concluded that the district “is a dysfunctional organization in severe danger of financial collapse in the near term if strenuous corrective action is not taken immediately.” Changes were made but not before several employees were caught in embezzlement schemes.

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Meanwhile, rifts among various factions--teachers, administrators, nonteaching employees, bilingual education advocates--are commonplace. Two years ago, the American Assn. of School Administrators released a report pointing to low morale, curriculum inadequacies and poor instruction.

Substantial numbers of parents send their children to private schools or enroll them in neighboring districts as they near high school age.

“Inglewood is one of those districts that is on the fence. It is in a precarious position,” said Priscilla Wohlstetter, director of USC’s Center on Educational Governance.

“Is it going to topple over, or will there finally be a move by the board to come together behind a superintendent and work together to solve its problems?”

Complicating the picture are dramatic shifts in the student population’s ethnic composition over the years, changing from predominantly white in 1970 to nearly 71% African American five years later. Today, 55% of the district’s students are Latinos, and 43% are black. All five board members and the superintendent are African Americans.

Through nearly three decades of changes, deep, often contentious political differences have marked the district’s governing boards. Like many of the bitter arguments that surrounded the conduct of district business over the years, the squabbles on today’s board often sound more like personality conflicts than debates over education ideology.

Board member Thomasina Reed, an attorney, is suing three of her colleagues (at district expense), contending that she was not allowed to speak her piece at board meetings. When Reed recently wrote to county officials last month, urging them to take over the district’s fiscal affairs again, board President Gloria Gray, who opposes such a takeover, wrote a rebuttal letter that managed to include a reference to Reed being on two years probation with the State Bar of California for an unspecified violation of its code of ethics.

“I’ve spent four years fighting with adults,” said board member Dexter Henderson, who lost his bid for a second term in April and will leave the board soon after the municipal runoff election June 3.

“We spent an inordinate amount of time on noneducation issues and had very little talk about how to improve test scores, or get more parents to volunteer or why one school is doing so well but another just a few blocks away is doing so poorly. It’s very frustrating,” said Henderson, the only board member with children attending district schools.

Henderson recently contributed to one of the board’s big ongoing battles when word got out that he and fellow board member Larry Aubry had quietly approached an assistant superintendent about the district’s top job.

Henderson, Aubry and Gray removed Supt. McKinley Nash from his post last month, put him on administrative leave and are considering whether to buy out the remaining year of his $103,000-a-year contract.

Nash declined to comment about the district’s ongoing woes, but said his critics have unfairly criticized his management style, which he described as “result-oriented and designed to get a fair outcome. . . . I would do it again and again and again, because I think the children are worth it.”

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His ouster sparked an outcry from supporters, and the battle over who will lead the district is far from over. All three of his board opponents could be gone soon--besides the defeated Henderson, Aubry faces a runoff and Gray is seeking a seat on the Inglewood City Council.

If they pick up even one vote from a new board member, Nash supporters could reinstate him, a move that would surely continue the divisive debate over Nash, who is at once widely admired and deeply disliked by various factions within the district.

Some, in fact, lay the district’s troubles at Nash’s door rather than at the board’s. Critics say Nash has a brusque and intimidating management style and sometimes plays favorites. They dislike the fact that teachers union President Shirley Mims’ husband has a consulting contract with the district and that, under Nash, the district allows her to do union work while paying her for teaching full time.

But his supporters--including the California Teachers Assn.--point to some rising test scores and the ferreting out of corruption, such as the adult school principal convicted in March of embezzling $27,000 from the district, as evidence that Nash has been a positive force and deserves to stay.

CTA officials have also threatened to file an injunction to stop the board from hiring a new superintendent before the June 3 election.

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Nash is the latest in a long line of superintendents to run afoul of a divided school board in Inglewood. His predecessor, George McKenna, left after four years when it split 2-3 on whether to renew his contract. He had taken over from Rex Fortune, who was fired in 1985 then brought back in the wake of community uproar. He resigned in 1988.

Nash won the job on a 3-2 vote, a few years after he was ousted from the top spot in the neighboring Centinela Valley Union High School District.

Wilson Riles, a former California superintendent of public instruction, and the one who recommended Nash to Inglewood board members, said he is not surprised by the district’s turmoil and firings.

“Fewer people are willing to serve their communities on school boards” these days, Riles said, which leaves a clear field for those hoping to launch political careers there.

“They’ve become very political, and some allow egos to get involved and try to micro-manage the school district,” Riles said.

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School Facts

Fiscal questions and a controversy over firing of the superintendent have turned a spotlight on the Inglewood Unified School District.

Number of schools: 20

Number of students: 16,765

1996-97 budget: $100 million

Employees: 600 teachers; 650 nonteaching employees

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Education statistics:

Inglewood

% who completed high school: 77.3%

% of students who enroll in UC, CSU and community colleges: 2.2%

SAT/ACT scores above national average: 0.9%

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State

% who completed high school: 83.1%

% of students who enroll in UC, CSU and community colleges: 7.1%

SAT/ACT scores above national average: 20.2%

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L.A. County

% who completed high school: 76.3%

% of students who enroll in UC, CSU and community colleges: 8.0%

SAT/ACT scores above national average: 17.3%