Staff Letter to Accrediting Team Cites Inglewood Adult School Ills : Complaints from school employees center on what they described as a year and a half of turmoil under Principal John Rabun.

A group of employees at Inglewood Community Adult School has used the visit of an accreditation team to complain about conditions at the school, saying administrators have violated the state Education Code and district policies.

The employees said they decided to detail their complaints in a letter to the accreditation team because of what they described as a year and a half of turmoil under Principal John Rabun.

School board members hired Rabun in November, 1986, although he was not the top-rated candidate and District Supt. Rex Fortune had recommended someone else. Walter Beyenberg, then acting principal, was the leading candidate, according to former board member William Draper. Beyenberg has filed a federal race and disability discrimination lawsuit against the district.

Positive Feedback From Others

Fortune said Wednesday that he knew of some problems involving individual employees at the adult school but said he had not been aware of the wider concerns detailed in the letter. The letter from five teachers and staff members was sent in advance of the team’s visit this week, which began Sunday and ended Wednesday.

Although Fortune acknowledged that some employees expressed discontent to the accreditation team during the team’s visit, he said there was considerable positive feedback from others.

Rabun said he wanted to discuss the matter but declined to do so, saying he needed Fortune’s permission.

In their April 26 letter to the committee, the five employees said they spoke despite warnings from administrators not to “voice negative concerns.”

The letter said that a self-study report prepared by staff and teachers for the accreditation team under Rabun’s guidance “does not reflect a realistic picture of the school,” which has about 100 teachers and other staff.

In interviews this week, current and former employees said problems at the school include the hiring and firing of employees without due process; a high rate of turnover caused by poor working conditions; lack of communication with the administration and with the community, and inadequate security at school sites. The letter cited Education Code sections, school board policies and previous accreditation reports that allegedly have been violated or ignored.

Important to Make Statement

The employees said they had not believed that their letter would have much impact on the team’s decision but thought that it was important to make a statement.

It is unusual for school employees to send written complaints to accreditation boards, said Donald Halverson, executive director of the accreditation commission of the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges. He said the committee met with those employees during the visit.

But Halverson said addressing improprieties alleged in the letter is ultimately the school board’s responsibility, as long as “the district has an appeal procedure in place.” The final decision on accreditation will occur in June, Halverson said.

The current employees who wrote the letter said they acted after several meetings of a group of about 15 disgruntled teachers and others.

“Many teachers and staff members were reluctant to sign their names, although they share the same concerns,” said the letter, which was signed by teachers Diane Chrisman, Anthony Correy and Myrtle Hess, head counselor Gislene Mariette and administrative secretary Jackie Bose.

The adult school, based on the Inglewood High School campus, offers day and night classes in English as a Second Language, high school diploma equivalency classes and office skills at Inglewood High and various locations throughout the district.

Employees said there has been tension at the school since Rabun’s hiring 18 months ago. Board members Caroline Coleman and the late Ernest Shaw voted to hire Rabun, with two other board members opposed and one abstaining. The decision came under a board rule that permits hirings in the case of ties. Before the vote, Fortune told the board that Rabun was not his recommendation.

In hiring Rabun, the board passed over former Beyenberg, a 25-year district employee. Beyenberg has filed a federal lawsuit charging that he was discriminated against because of his race and because he is disabled.

Walks With Crutches

Beyenberg is white and walks with the aid of crutches. Rabun and the board members and administrators named in the suit are black. The adult school employees who wrote the accreditation team include blacks and whites; several of them are Beyenberg supporters.

Fortune said Wednesday that he did not want to discuss his 1986 opposition to Rabun’s hiring, adding: “I have a very fine working relationship with the principal. I think in any large organization, personnel problems will come up from time to time.”

Employees said that Rabun is an intimidating administrator and that employees have been hired and fired improperly. For example, their letter to the accreditation panel says the hiring of former teacher Alfonso Webb as Rabun’s administrative assistant violated district policy because the position was not publicized or formally approved by the school board.

Fortune said Webb had taken on additional duties rather than being assigned to a new position. And he said he had received no reports of intimidation of employees.

The letter also alleged that employees have been forced from their jobs without due process, citing Education Code sections that may have been violated.

As an example, employees cited the case of 12-year veteran teacher Robert Ryan. Ryan went on an unpaid leave of absence with Beyenberg’s written approval in January, 1987.

When Ryan returned from his leave last September, he found that he had not been given a teaching assignment. Ryan said Rabun told him it had been assumed he would not be returning.

“Their whole excuse was that the leave had been from the acting principal (Beyenberg),” Ryan said. “Rabun told me he never heard of me.”

Ryan said Rabun assured him he would be given the first available opening. Nearly one school year later, Ryan says has not been contacted.

But Fortune supported the contention that the new principal had not been briefed on Ryan’s leave. Because adult instructors are part-time teachers who are not members of the teachers’ union, the district has no obligation to rehire Ryan, Fortune said.

Elizabeth Griffin, a former coordinator of the English as a Second Language program who resigned after the 1986-87 school year, said she is among numerous ESL employees who have left the school in the past year because the quality of the program has declined.

“The word is out about the Inglewood Adult School,” Griffin said. “ESL teachers don’t want to teach there. The word is out about the treatment of teachers, the working conditions. People without proper credentials are being hired.”

Disregard District Policy

The employees’ letter also criticized hiring procedures for ESL teachers, saying administrators disregard district policy on qualifications and experience and ignore recommendations of the current ESL program coordinator when hiring teachers. This has affected “student attendance, continuity and teacher morale,” the letter stated.

Fortune said he had not heard reports of such problems before.

Another former teacher, Donna Montgomery, said she was led to believe that she had been hired to a permanent position in September but was told a week later that her services were no longer needed because she had been hired only as a substitute. Attorney Phillip Brimbel, who filed an unsuccessful claim with the school district for Montgomery, said a lawsuit is being considered.

In addition, teachers complained that Rabun has cut himself off from faculty by requiring all communication with him to go through his assistant, Webb, and said he has failed to attend or has rescheduled numerous departmental meetings.

Communication to the outside community has also suffered, the employees said, because some school sites do not sufficiently publicize ESL classes and because adult school brochures are incomplete, are released late, are poorly written and contain misprints.

Evening Staff Reduced

As for campus safety, employees said there is not an adequate security staff as recommended by a 1982 accreditation report. In fact, the letter said, the evening staff has been reduced. It also said lighting in parking areas and hallways has not functioned on several occasions.

Former board members Draper and Rosemary Benjamin voted against hiring Rabun in 1986.

Draper, who is running in the June 7 school board special election, said the recommendations of a review panel and of the superintendent were ignored in the decision to rehire Rabun, who had previously worked for the district. Rabun filed a wrongful termination suit against the district in 1984 that was dropped in 1986, court records show.

“The review panel rated Beyenberg first several times,” Draper said.

A tape of the November, 1986, board meeting at which Rabun was hired shows that after Coleman moved to hire Rabun, Draper asked Fortune a series of questions, eliciting the following information from Fortune:

Rabun was not his recommendation for the job.

Rabun had no experience with adult education.

Rabun came in third in the selection process.

Fortune recommended the candidate who had come in first in the selection process. (That person was Beyenberg, according to Draper.)

Beyenberg has subsequently suffered a heart attack and is currently on unpaid leave because he has used up his sick leave. Depositions are to be taken for his lawsuit this summer, according his attorney, Lawrence Steinberg.