‘Tough’ Principal Is Transferred After Policies Split School

When classes ended for the two-week holiday break in December, the faculty and parents at Riverside Drive Elementary School were divided into two camps.

On one side stood the supporters of Barbara Roe. A plain-spoken woman whose leadership style is described as “tough,” she was the third principal in the past nine years at the Sherman Oaks school. Her supporters say that in just one year she placed a new emphasis on ensuring that each child in the school was assigned to classes and programs that met his or her learning needs.

On the other side were those unhappy with Roe’s leadership. A group led by teachers with 20 years of service at the school saw Roe’s policies as “dictatorial.” They accused her of having favorites among the teachers and said her demands for detailed lesson plans and reports on classroom activities were excessive.

“There is always some disagreement on policies and direction between faculty and administration,” said Sidney Thompson, associate superintendent for school operation, “but the degree of disagreement at Riverside was a very unusual situation.”

William Rivera, special assistant to the superintendent of schools, said, “We realized that nothing good would happen at the school if she stayed there.”

So last week Roe started the spring semester as principal at Lemay Elementary School in Van Nuys. Three Riverside teachers--including a leader of the anti-Roe contingent--were transferred to other schools.

Roe could not be reached to comment, but interviews with parents, teachers, district administrators and Wayne Johnson, president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, paint a picture of colliding interests that, for a while at least, took attention away from the education of Riverside’s 498 students.

School in Transition

When Roe arrived at Riverside Elementary in January, 1984, she found a school in transition.

Almost half of the students are from middle-class Anglo families living in the Sherman Oaks-North Hollywood area. About 35% are Latino, many of whom are bused in from overcrowded schools in Los Angeles. Another 14% of Riverside’s pupils come from North Hollywood’s growing Asian immigrant community. About 2% are black and come from the surrounding neighborhood.

Parents who supported Roe say she approached the job with fervor. She made sure that classes once short of textbooks were adequately supplied. Pupils who exemplified good citizenship were rewarded with special assemblies and treats. She established special computer programs and labs for study of English as a second language. She promised parents that the school’s reading scores on standardized tests would improve.

“I found her to be very precise in what she wanted done,” said Sheila Rowan, who has a child at Riverside. “She was very accessible and the children related well to her.”

But other parents and faculty members paint a different picture of Roe’s tenure. They termed “disruptive” a program that excused students from classes so they could help her plant flowers. They said the computer course she established lacked the direction needed to make it meaningful for students.

One complaint made over and over was that she had favorites on the staff and that she showed the most favoritism in the preparation of lesson plans.

When Harry Handler became superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1981, he initiated a program called Basic Activities that set a series of objectives as a way to improve the educational atmosphere at each school.

One goal was for every teacher to have a set of written lesson plans that would be easily accessible to the principal and to substitutes that might be called on to take over a class.

“Some principals interpreted this to mean that teachers would have to prepare very structured, very detailed plans,” Rivera said. “Dr. Handler has repeatedly stressed that the directive on lesson plans was not aimed to be all compelling. He just wanted something that provides an indication of what is going on in the classroom. These plans could have been on a three-by-five index card.”

Rivera said it is up to each principal to interpret the directive. According to Riverside teachers, some faculty members who were favorites could present brief outlines of daily lessons. Those who believed they were not favored were asked for detailed presentations of their class sessions.

Faculty complaints about Roe brought the union into the dispute. When Johnson was elected president of the city’s largest teacher’s union last year, he promised more aggressive action against administrators whom teachers considered poor.

‘Turning the Screws’

After Riverside faculty members began complaining about Roe, the union “started turning the screws,” Johnson said. “The public always hears about bad teachers and getting rid of bad teachers. Nobody talks about bad administrators. The union never did anything about bad administrators except suffer with them. I thought that we should change that situation.”

Roe, along with the principals at Joseph LeConte Junior High and Santa Monica Boulevard Elementary, both in Hollywood, were targeted by the union for replacement at the end of the semester.

“The union alerted me to problems at Riverside, but at no time did they make demands,” Associate Superintendent Thompson said. “I met with the union representatives and the teachers and they presented their case. I said we would make our own investigation.”

Details of the investigation were not disclosed, but the decision to transfer Roe was made after meetings with parents and faculty members.

The fallout from the battle at Riverside Drive Elementary School continues.

The first reaction came at John B. Monlux Elementary School in North Hollywood when faculty and parents learned that Principal James Abbott had been abruptly transferred to Riverside.

The departure of Abbott, a popular principal who had been at Monlux for three years, sparked protests that ended with parents denouncing the move at last week’s Board of Education meeting.

“The transfer of James Abbott was an administrative choice we had to make,” Thompson said.

Johnson said his union plans to file an unfair labor practice suit and seek monetary penalties for damage to the reputation of some of the Riverside faculty members who were transferred after the investigation at the school.

“It is unfair for a teacher to be punished because the school had a lousy principal,” Johnson said.

But Rivera explained the transfers differently.

“With all the opposing factions removed, it will give the school a chance for a fresh start,” he said.