Westminster Board Rescinds Superintendent Job Offer

Trustees of the troubled Westminster School District left students, teachers and parents baffled Wednesday by withdrawing a job offer to a superintendent seven days after it voted to hire her.

With little explanation, the board voted Tuesday night to rescind a decision to hire KimOanh Nguyen-Lam, who many think would have been the first Vietnamese American superintendent in Orange County. Two board members who had voted to hire Nguyen-Lam changed sides to revoke the offer.

Nguyen-Lam, 46, said board members did not tell her the reason for their change but speculated it had to do with pressure from groups that are “not ready to have a superintendent with a minority background.” She said she would remain at her current job and was considering a lawsuit.

“I’m very, very disappointed, to say the least,” she said.

In a city whose population is predominantly Latino and Asian but whose power structure is largely white, the vote to rescind the job offer split along ethnic lines: The two board members who remained backers of Nguyen-Lam are Latino, and the three who voted to withdraw the offer are white.

“I think KimOanh has every single right to sue them,” said Tony Lam, a former Westminster councilman who is not related to Nguyen-Lam, but who is of Vietnamese descent.

“It’s purely and simply discrimination.”

The move has put the spotlight on a school district in disarray.

Four of its top five administrators have quit in the last year, including the superintendent, Sheri Loewenstein, who announced her resignation after only 16 months. Teachers have been working without a union contract since September.

Two years ago, the tiny district, which serves about 10,000 students in Westminster and parts of Huntington Beach, Garden Grove and Midway City, narrowly averted the loss of millions in federal funding after dropping a fight with the state over extending protections to transsexuals and others in its antidiscrimination policy.

Disagreement over the issue led the board to demote its president and prompted a recall attempt against some board members.

Even fellow board members said they didn’t know why James Reed and Judy Ahrens changed their votes on Nguyen-Lam.

“This came out of left field,” said Sergio Contreras, a trustee who backed Nguyen-Lam. “We have incompetent board members who are absolutely out of touch with the community they serve.”

Ahrens did not respond to several requests for comment. Reed was out of state and could not be reached. Board president Blossie Marquez, who twice voted for Nguyen-Lam’s hiring, did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Nguyen-Lam is an associate director at the Center for Language Minority Education and Research at Cal State Long Beach and is a trustee in the Garden Grove Unified School District.

She was a teacher for 14 years in Orange County and worked with a national group to advance the educational interests of Asian Americans. She speaks English, Vietnamese, Spanish and French.

Trish Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the school district, said it hired a search firm in February to find a replacement for Loewenstein. Nguyen-Lam was among seven candidates selected out of 15 for interviews and among three interviewed a second time.

Board members voted 4 to 1 to award her the job May 23, but the decision was thrown into doubt almost immediately. Jo-Ann Purcell, the lone board member who opposed the hiring, said she received a telephone call the next morning from the acting superintendent saying Reed wanted to change his vote. By that Friday, the school administrator had told Contreras that Reed and Ahrens had changed their minds.

Purcell said she felt that the field of candidates the search firm produced was weak and that Nguyen-Lam did not have enough experience, but that there was pressure from other board members to hire her.

Montgomery, the school district spokeswoman, said the board had not announced plans to fill the position.