Controversial Gompers School Principal to Stay, Payzant Says

The transfer of the principal at Gompers Secondary School will not be considered despite escalating demands of parents, predominantly white, who maintain that a new administrator is crucial to solving a crisis at the science magnet school, city schools Supt. Tom Payzant said Monday.

“We’ve got to move away from people seeing the issues in terms of individuals and positions so that solutions aren’t based on the principal going or staying, or teachers free to speak or not to speak their minds,” Payzant said after a school board meeting where parents again painted the Gompers situation as one of bitter disagreement.

“We can’t function in that climate.”

But Payzant conceded that he has his work cut out Wednesday evening when he appears before what is expected to be a tense meeting of parents, teachers and students at which a special crisis committee will present a final report on its two months of problem-solving sessions.

Already, a large group of white and Asian parents, whose children are bused to the special science integration program at the Southeast San Diego campus, have pulled out of the crisis committee, claiming that the meetings were more like therapy sessions where the moderator allowed black parents to make disparaging, racial remarks about them.

These parents say that the principal, Marie Thornton, has made longstanding problems at the school worse by refusing to talk to teachers upset about having to teach at both the junior- and senior-high levels, and by always siding with black parents who allege racism in the program. Thornton is black.

Gompers mixes high-powered students, about half white and half nonwhite, in a five-grade-level science magnet, while students of an almost all-minority inner-city seventh- and eighth-grade junior high, also a part of the campus, struggle to master basic skills.

Payzant said Monday that the problems at Gompers, such as how to boost the academic performance of the junior high resident students by having more magnet instructors teach them, predate Thornton’s arrival on the campus.

“Everybody involved-- all of the adults at Gompers--are going to have to modify their behavior,” Payzant said. He said that he will consider the report to be presented Wednesday night, even though many magnet parents say it will not reflect their view of the situation.

“It would be easier if everyone had stayed until the end, but if the reality is that some chose not to do that, then I have to work with what I’ve got and respond with my best judgment on what to do for the situation,” Payzant said.

Payzant cautioned that the value of the report will not be clear until after he receives it.

“But I have to pay more attention to the people who stayed with the meeting process and try to acknowledge where there is or is not consensus.”

Runs Some Risk

Pazyant conceded that, by doing so, he runs the risk of some magnet parents choosing to take their children out of Gompers, which several parents already have decided to do. Many district administrators are anxious that the situation be stabilized as soon as possible because September enrollments for the magnet already have begun to decline.

“But I also have an obligation to those who chose to stay with the meetings and not invalidate their efforts,” he said.

Payzant already has chosen two new vice principals for Gompers beginning in September, transfering the two existing administrators. Bob Stein, now a vice principal at Pershing Junior High, has a long record as an integration specialist in the district as well as expertise on curriculum reforms. Linford Thomas, now at Crawford High School, has a good record in enforcing discipline as well as motivating students by serving as a positive role model, Payzant said. Thomas is black.

“I think they will provide real strength in dealing with the issues that have been raised so far and will provide a good team with Thornton to work through the conflicts,” he said.