Head Start Classes Suspended Over Threats, Vandalism

The executive director of the Long Beach-area Head Start program shut down 11 preschools this week following reports of threats and vandalism that he says are at least indirectly linked to an internal struggle for control of the agency.

Richard Madrid said he suspended classes for all 887 students at the Long Beach and Hawaiian Gardens sites until Monday because of recent threats of violence against two parents who have strongly supported the appointment of more blacks and Southeast Asians to the agency’s Latino-dominated board of directors.

The one-week suspension of classes comes just days after federal officials warned Long Beach Head Start to appoint representatives from more ethnic groups and community organizations to its board or risk losing its $2.6 million grant.

Closing the preschools provided a “cooling-off period” that was necessary to ensure that no harm came to the parents, their children or others, Madrid said.

A spokesman for the FBI said the agency was contacted about the matter last week and referred it to the Long Beach Police Department. That department said it had received a complaint from one parent, who reported phone threats Feb. 24 until Feb. 27. The two parents could not be reached for comment.

Madrid said he did not know who is responsible for the threats or for the minor damage done 2 1/2 weeks ago to his and his chief deputy’s automobiles, and similar damage to the private preschool owned by board Chairwoman Carrie Bryant, who also favors a greater ethnic mix on the board.

But he said the parents who were threatened “have been identified by certain pockets of (Head Start) employees as being anti-Hispanic (and) they’ve been targeted. . . . I think the issue is an internal political issue about board representation.”

Bryant also said there’s a connection between the threats and board infighting, but added that she has no proof.

Roberto Uranga, a Head Start board member and sharp critic of both Madrid and Bryant, said he was outraged by their comments. Neither he nor any member of the board’s Latino majority is connected to the threats, he said.

Uranga said Madrid and Bryant are using the publicity surrounding the threats and vandalism to gain sympathy and support, and that Head Start parents and children have been the losers. He said Bryant, who is black, is attempting to increase her influence and black membership on the board.

“I don’t know why they broke the news on this,” said Uranga, referring to the threats and the one-week suspension of classes. “If they had kept quiet it wouldn’t have created this big scare. Now we have parents upset and apprehensive and wondering what’s going on.”

Uranga said the Latino board majority, which was not involved in the decision to close the 11 preschools, also favors greater representation from a wide variety of community and ethnic groups. But he said it wants to make sure that Latinos do not end up being under-represented. After a conversation Tuesday, Uranga and Bryant said they would probably meet in an emergency board meeting Wednesday evening. Both said, however, that they would only discuss the reopening of the Head Start sites on Monday. (The outcome of the meeting could not be learned before press time.)

Board composition will be discussed at a regularly scheduled meeting next Tuesday, they said.

Both said they will attempt to work out a compromise that will diminish tensions and allow the seven vacancies on the 15-member board to be filled soon. The board is now made up of two blacks and six Latinos.

But Bryant said she also is working separately to gain support for her own reorganization plan from Head Start regional administrators in San Francisco and local public officials.

And Uranga said he will continue to charge Madrid with mismanagement of the Head Start program until federal officials agree to investigate hiring, contract and personnel practices.

Madrid decided to temporarily suspend Head Start classes last Friday after he met with Bryant and the agency’s legal counsel, and after consulting with regional Head Start officials, who said they sanctioned the move.

Earlier in the week, the Head Start Policy Council, parent advisers from preschool sites, voted unanimously for the suspension because of the vandalism and threats, said Madrid and Bryant.

Roy Fleischer, program director of the federal agency that administers Head Start in the West, said he talked with Madrid and other Long Beach administrators last week and agreed that children, parents and staff members could have been jeopardized if classes had been held this week.

Fleischer said several Head Start teachers and administrators told his staff last week that they had also received anonymous telephone threats during the previous 10 days. The callers demanded that the Head Start staff members support “one faction” of the directors’ board, Fleischer said.

Madrid and Bryant said they did not know about threats to Head Start staff members.

Years of Turmoil

Fleischer said the controversy arose out of years of turmoil about whether a black- or Latino-dominated agency should direct Long Beach’s Head Start efforts. Management problems were also serious until recent months, he said.

Madrid took over 18 months ago for another embattled executive director who had been severely criticized in a 1985 federal audit. At that time, Long Beach Head Start was given a year to do better or lose its grant.

“There’s been a Long Beach problem ever since I came to California in 1979,” said Fleischer on Tuesday in a telephone interview from his San Francisco office. “But we thought we were finally getting there, and it would be truly unfortunate to slip back now over what appears to be a power struggle over a Head Start board.”

Fleischer, a director at the federal Administration for Children, Youth and Family, said Long Beach Head Start was notified two weeks ago that it must revamp its board or possibly lose its grant July 1.

“If there remains a clear one-side representation on the board, then we would have to look at that before we do a refunding,” he said. “But I certainly do not intend to make a threat against the program, because for the first time in many years . . . program quality has been good.”

Five months ago, Head Start severed its ties with the local council of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which had run the program since 1983 through its appointees on the Head Start board.

U.S. officials insisted on the separation last year because federal guidelines require that Head Start programs be autonomous and their boards representative of the entire community, Fleischer said.

The transition, however, has not been smooth. Madrid and Bryant insist that LULAC has continued to control the Head Start board through appointments it made before ties were severed.

Letter Disputed

In a Feb. 17 letter to Bryant, Fleischer said five of the eight current Head Start board members were also members of the local LULAC group. His letter also charged that there was still a conflict of interest because some LULAC members work for Head Start or have close relatives employed by the agency.

Irma Archuletta, chairwoman of local LULAC, said Fleischer was apparently basing his statements on inaccurate information.

Archuletta said that only two of the Head Start board members--Uranga and his wife, Tonia Reyes--are also members of the local LULAC Council. Seven Head Start board members, including Bryant and two others who frequently vote with her, were appointed by LULAC because until last fall it was the agency responsible for the Head Start grant, she said. The eighth member was named by the parent-advisory committee.

No member of the LULAC Council works for Head Start or has a close relative on its staff, Archuletta said. She said, however, that her husband had worked for Head Start for three years until resigning recently. She has been on the LULAC Council for two years, she said. (The local LULAC group has 10 members and all are on the LULAC Council.)

Uranga pointed out, however, that Head Start by-laws did not prohibit LULAC Council members and their families from working in its Head Start program until the by-laws were redrafted late last year.

According to Uranga, although Tonia Reyes worked for Head Start until the spring of 1986, when she resigned, she was not appointed to the Head Start board until two months later. She was on the LULAC Council when she worked at Head Start for six months in 1985-86, but possible conflict-of-interest was not an issue at that time, he said.

Fleischer said the Reyes case raises concern about the close relationship among employees of Head Start, the LULAC Council and the Head Start board.

‘Responsible People’

“That’s the kind of thing . . . where you lose at least the appearance of objectivity, and in dealing with taxpayers’ money that’s not acceptable,” he said. “Our regulations with regard to conflict of interest are understandably pretty tough.”

Uranga said he and LULAC have always worked well with Fleischer’s office, following its lead in hiring Madrid in mid-1985, in replacing an outspoken Latino, Jerome Torres, with Bryant as chairman of the Head Start board in mid-1986, and in formally severing ties last fall between LULAC and Head Start.

But the LULAC Council, in accordance with the new by-laws, is entitled to nominate at least three people for the 15-member board, and it will insist upon some representation, he said.

“What really bothers me,” Archuletta said, “is that we have been trying to work with the board and with Carrie (Bryant) and with Richard (Madrid) and with (federal officials), and they’re making us sound like horrible people. We’re not. We are responsible people who have been in this community many years.”

Bryant said, however, that the Head Start board has refused to seriously consider non-Latino board candidates and has created a deadlock that could threaten program funding.

“I’m not trying to make it into a black and brown thing, but it seems to be coming to that anyway,” said Bryant.

Both sides agree that Head Start students are not benefiting from the current turmoil.

“If board members are not going to support the needs of the children and the families, I think they need to decide they’re not going to be on the board. That’s all the board exists for,” Fleischer said.