Inglewood School Board Race Spans Wide Range of Issues

With nine candidates vying for three school board seats in the Inglewood Unified School District, issues hinge on the quality of education and run the gamut from overcrowding and teachers’ raises to reinstating the elementary school music program.

For school board seat No. 1, incumbent Caroline Coleman faces two challengers in what promises to be a tough race.

With seven years on the board, Coleman, 47, is the board’s senior member, but her candidacy has been clouded not only by her close ties to the City Council, but by the ongoing investigation of alleged misuse of public funds being conducted by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. That office is expected to make a recommendation on possible indictment of Coleman to the Grand Jury before the April 2 election.

Coleman has been accused by school board President William (Tony) Draper of failing to attend a New Orleans educational conference last November after she accepted a $1,200 advance from the district. She also has been accused of fabricating receipts for her plane fare, conference registration fees and other expenses totaling $1,577. When the issue was raised, Coleman returned all the money.

Coleman has maintained her innocence and says that as the board’s longest-standing member, she can still provide needed stability and background.

“I’m running on my record,” she said. “I feel that I have integrity and that people who know me share that opinion. I don’t feel the investigation hampers me at all.”

As for her ties to the city, Coleman said she believes that both the school board and City Council must work more closely together.

“I put the interests of the district first,” she said, “but I do believe we must achieve a more harmonious relationship between city and district. Right now I think we’re jealous of each other’s authority. That’s petty.

“I think there are a lot of areas where we could learn from each other. What we need is an atmosphere where we can sit down and listen to each other. In other cities the school board and city meet regularly. I’d like to see something like that happen here.”

Coleman pointed to Project HOPE and the Inglewood Technical Institute as projects she would like to expand, and as “living examples of what we can achieve if we work together.” Project HOPE is a truancy program that suspends students but places them in a structured classroom environment, and the technical institute is a joint project initiated by Councilman Anthony Scardenzan that provides Inglewood students with vocational training at local corporations.

Coleman, a deputy probation officer for Los Angeles County, said she also hopes to secure funding for three new elementary schools that the district “needs desperately.” Dealing with overcrowding and poor maintenance, she said, would be among her top priorities in a third term. Coleman was appointed to the school board in 1978 to fill a vacant seat and has served since then.

Opponent Mildred McNair said that for her, “depoliticizing the school board” ranks among the district’s most pressing tasks.

“I have lived here since 1969,” McNair, 40, said. “In that time I’ve watched the Inglewood school system go from one of the best in the country to one of the worst. I think that’s based on politics. The board members have politicized the system and used the district as a political football. Changing the relationship between the district and the city is crucial to improving the educational system.”

McNair, a perennial candidate who has run several times for both the school board and City Council, said she also plans to “closely scrutinize” children coming into the district. Students coming into Inglewood from outside the district are “taxing the district’s resources,” she said, “and lowering the quality of our schools.”

Flight of Students

At the same time, though, McNair said she wants to stop the flight of Inglewood children from the school district into private schools.

“Parents are disgusted with the situation in the Inglewood schools,” she said, “so they put their children in private schools. We need to draw those kids back. They’re the ones that should be attending.”

Candidate Karen Bonner Gill, 37, said she has taken her two children out of private schools and enrolled them in Inglewood schools as proof of her faith in the system.

“People don’t realize public schools can offer much more than private schools in many cases,” Gill said. “At Morningside (High School) my son is being allowed to take geometry and second-year algebra. At his private school, they didn’t have the structure to allow him to take advanced math.

“The image of the school is what will determine whether parents return to the system. Regardless of what’s going on inside the campus, if parents see people hanging out in front of the school, and open drug transactions a couple of blocks down, they’re not going to send their kids. We’re losing some of our brightest students that way.”

More Vocational Training

Gill, an assistant loan servicing manager, said she also would like to see expanded vocational training and closer cooperation between campus security and the Police Department to rid school areas of drug traffic.

An independent board is another crucial issue for Gill.

“I don’t think there is independence on the board right now,” she said. “The school district should be able to ask the city for help when they need it, but at the same time, when an item comes up that is more in the interests of the city than the school, the district should be able to say no. I don’t think that exists now.”

Gill, who is a former California School Employees Assn. president and current vice president of the Morningside High School Parent Teachers Assn., said she also is committed to upgrading Morningside High School.

“That school has been allowed to deteriorate inside and out, and I think it’s happening on purpose.” Gill said she believes the reason is that the campus lies in a redevelopment area that may eventually be rezoned for light industry.

“I think they (city officials) see a 52-acre high school site with dropping enrollment as an incompatible land use.”

Upgraded Campus

Gill said she wants to “protect the interests of those students” by making sure that either the campus is upgraded or a new modern campus is constructed elsewhere in the city.

In the three-way contest for seat No. 2, incumbent Ronni Cooper said she is optimistic about reelection.

“I think we’ve been part of a lot of improvements in the elementary school program,” said Cooper, who is completing her first term, “and I think people will want us to continue.” She ticked off higher test scores, better plant maintenance and a stronger policy to retain students as some of those improvements.

Secondary schools, she said, have not fared as well, “and that is part of my reason for running again, because the job is not finished yet.”

Cooper said she wants to see the board’s retention policy extended to junior high and high schools to prevent the “brain drain” that she says is afflicting the district.

“Our best elementary school students don’t go on to our junior high schools. They either go to private schools or lie to get into other districts. I would like to change that.”

More Spending

And after years of scarcity, Cooper said, she looks forward to spending a little money for a change.

“The first three years I was on the board, all I did was cut, cut, cut. The city is in better financial shape now, and I think it’s time to start adding back. My personal goal is to reinstate the music program that was cut two years ago.

Cooper, 41, lives in Ladera Heights, which is within the district.

Opponent Michael Davis said he would work toward expanding the district’s vocational training and counseling and further developing its Headstart program.

Davis, 31, said he also is concerned about the low test scores that placed Inglewood high schools near the bottom this year in state rankings.

“In Los Angeles there has been a definite relationship between low test scores and the ultimate dropout rate. I’m concerned that our low test scores may portend a greater dropout rate in the future,” he said.

Product of District

An immigration counselor in Los Angeles, Davis said he would bring a different perspective to the Inglewood school system because he is a product of it.

“Go out and achieve, then come back and give to the community. That’s what I’ve done and I think we can inspire other kids to do the same.”

As a longtime educator himself, candidate Ernest Shaw says he has mapped out a definite plan to revitalize the system.

Shaw, 56, an assistant principal at 112th Street School in Los Angeles, said he has used his 27 years in education to formulate a plan that includes:

- Raising teachers’ salaries “comparable to what industry pays.”

- Requiring each school to work with parents to draft a two-year plan to “strengthen the total instructional program.”

- Improving the learning environment by involving students, staff, parents and the community in school pride campaigns.

- Improving staff morale by including staff members in meetings where school issues and operational procedures are discussed.

Getting People Involved

“We have a pathetically low level of involvement right now,” Shaw said. “We must get everybody caring about every one of the schools in this district, from the clerks to the parents, from the kids to the custodians.”

In her bid for a second term in seat No. 3, incumbent Rosemary Benjamin said she wants to emphasize a balance between college preparatory work and vocational training, “so if students choose not to go to college, they will still be able to get a decent job.”

Benjamin, 51, said she also is concerned with keeping students abreast of high technology and of coming to grips with the district’s changing demographics.

“Our district is becoming increasingly Hispanic,” she said, “and I think as a board we’re going to have to make some adjustments to meet the special needs those students will bring with them.”

A high priority for her second term, she said, would be restoring support systems for teachers.

“Teachers should not have to be librarians, health officers, or clerks. They should do what they do best--teach.”

A former instructional aide, Benjamin is now retired and lives in Inglewood.

Other candidates for school board seat No. 3 are James Cousar, who refused to be interviewed by The Times, and Wanda Brown, who did not respond to repeated phone calls by The Times.