Pacific Oaks Earns Passing Grade

Pacific Oaks College and Children’s School has received a passing grade from the accreditation commission whose stinging criticism three years ago triggered major upheavals in the venerable institution.

Saying “great strides have been made in the past three years,” a team of accrediting commissioners from the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges lifted fears that Pacific Oaks might not have recovered from years of financial and academic woes.

The team studied the school in April as an unusual interim measure ordered by the association after its critical review in 1985. Accreditation reviews are usually conducted every five years or so. A draft report of the team’s April findings was distributed to school officials last week.

“It’s a healthy report, and I’m pleased,” said Katherine Gabel, whose appointment as president after the 1985 report was one of several events that stirred protest at the school.

“It confirmed the progress we have seen,” said Olin Barrett, chairman of Pacific Oaks’ board of trustees, who credited Gabel with having made changes “under extraordinary pressure.”

Wide Improvement

While not laudatory, the visiting team noted that Pacific Oaks had improved in many areas that had been criticized. It concluded that school leaders are aware that “much remains to be done, and they are capable of doing it.”

The 1985 report urged that Pacific Oaks improve communication among faculty, administration and board members; establish higher academic qualifications and salaries for teachers; create “greater academic rigor throughout the program,” and set up a program of long-range planning. It also criticized the school’s “financial instability.”

The team reported progress in all of the critical areas.

Kay Andersen, executive director of the association, said that although Pacific Oaks was never in danger of losing its accreditation, school officials believe the interim report is an important measure of the school’s academic status.

Innovative Education

Founded in 1945 by a small group of Quakers who borrowed money for the down payment on a nursery school on California Boulevard, Pacific Oaks has long had a reputation for innovative early childhood education.

It was a preschool until 1956, when its adult education program grew into a small college that now awards bachelor’s and master’s degrees in child development and marriage and family counseling.

The preschool gradually expanded to include kindergarten and the first three grades of primary school. It has an enrollment of about 175 and almost always had waiting lists for most of its classes.

The campuses are a few blocks apart, both housed in Craftsman-style houses near Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco.

Responding to criticism by the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges in 1985 for lack of leadership and direction, for “inbreeding” of faculty members who had graduated from the college, and for financial instability, the board told Gabel to “make whatever changes were necessary,” Barrett said.

The changes--which included firing some faculty members and administrators and hiring people Gabel chose--resulted in protests by faculty, college students and parents of pupils in the children’s program. Most of them claimed that Gabel violated Quaker principles of concern for the individual and making decisions through consensus.

‘Midnight Massacre’

Several teachers and families of students left the school after the firings, described by one as “the midnight massacre.”

One board member resigned, but the rest supported Gabel.

“I’m satisfied now. Pacific Oaks is still Pacific Oaks,” said Asenath (Kennie) Young, the last of the original Quaker founders remaining on the board.

“I felt the first (1985) report was unfair,” she said. “But we have tightened up the whole place, and we have worked very hard at it. I think we’ll pull through financially now--after all, we had to borrow money to buy the school in the first place.”

Barrett said Gabel not only strengthened the staff but raised $800,000 in gifts and grant money, more than double the previous year’s total. Pacific Oaks has a $2-million annual budget, most of which comes from tuition.

Deficit Reduced

Some of the gift money is being used for computerization and a research center, and some has gone into special programs, Barrett said. Last year’s deficit of almost $200,000 has been reduced to less than $75,000, he said.

“The president is out in the world more, not stuck at home under siege,” Barrett said. Relations among the board, faculty and administration have improved, he said, because “I think she has made an effort to soften her style, but I think it never was as abrupt as some people thought.”

Gabel instigated an across-the-board salary increase of 20% two years ago, agreeing with the accrediting team’s opinion that salaries were too low. A second increase scheduled for July 1 will raise some salaries as much as $5,000. All employees will get a 5% raise.

The preschool teachers who had been getting the lowest salaries will be paid on the same scale as the nine college teachers, Gabel said.

‘Trying to Be a Model’

“We believe that early childhood education, which traditionally pays the lowest wages, is as important as college education,” she said. “We’re trying to be a model. We just felt because we want to fight for legislation for higher salaries for early childhood education, we need to practice what we preach.”

Laila Aaen, dean of the college, said enrollment has risen from 300 last year to 350, and she expects it to go on increasing.

Pacific Oaks began a special “weekend college” in February, in which degrees can be earned through classes on Saturdays and Sundays. Aaen said about 200 people are enrolled in the classes.

Elaine Gee Wong of Monterey Park, a mother of five who withdrew a child from Pacific Oaks in the midst of its turbulence two years ago, said she may enroll one or two of her children in the preschool program next year.

“I’m definitely open to it again if they pull it together,” she said. “My older children got excellent educations. It’s so children-oriented that the second-best school doesn’t even come close.”