2 Schools’ Plan for Coed Merger Angers Parents

A group of board members from Westlake School for girls was sitting around having an after-dinner drink one night last July when one of them--almost in jest--suggested a merger with Harvard School for boys.

That casual comment made at a board retreat in Ojai, as reported by two of those in attendance, has apparently become the death knell for more than 85 years of single-sex education at the two highly rated, private junior-senior high schools, joining an accelerating trend throughout the country.

Swiftly and, the Westlake Board of Trustees says, irrevocably, a deal was cut for the two prestigious private schools to become in 1991 one coeducational institution--Harvard-Westlake. A final vote on the plan is scheduled for later this month.

Parents, students and faculty who were not privy to the negotiations were stunned by an Oct. 3. announcement of the merger. While reaction at Harvard has been largely positive, the announcement has spawned a tremendous backlash at Westlake as angry parents have demanded an explanation and a voice in the decision.

“If the decision is so right and so good, it could stand the light of discussion,” said parent Rick Stephens at a contentious Thursday night meeting to address the issue that was attended by about 500 parents.

When one parent sought to introduce a motion asking the board to reconsider, Board of Trustees Chairman Alan Levy responded angrily: “This is not a shareholders’ meeting. There are no stockholders in this corporation.”

Disgruntled parents have obtained 388 signatures on a petition seeking a 90-day delay in a final Board of Trustees vote on the merger, which is expected to be made final later this month.

They are fighting, as one of their flyers said, to “Save the Westlake School for Girls,” an atmosphere in which they believe that their daughters can flourish and grow into strong women.

Their belief in single-sex education for girls was fostered by the same educator--longtime Westlake headmaster Nathan Reynolds--who is now telling them that the Holmby Hills school will become second-rate if it does not join with Harvard in North Hollywood.

“This whole thing is totally hypocritical for what we’ve been taught for five years,” said senior Amy Stephens at Thursday’s meeting, citing research that indicates coeducation favors men over women.

Despite promises of parity from Reynolds and Levy, parents saw signs that they fear mean Westlake will be swallowed up by Harvard. Harvard will dominate the newly formed Board of Trustees by a 2-1 margin in the merger plan, and the Harvard headmaster will be in charge of the school. Grades seven through nine will be taught at the Westlake campus in Holmby Hills, while the upper grades will attend Harvard in North Hollywood.

Westlake has a student population of 680. About 800 students attend Harvard.

In a measured, half-hour speech to the parents, Reynolds said the future was not good for Westlake. He said all the top local, private schools compete for about 400 girls. He estimated that at least half of the top-notch 100 girls a year who choose Westlake would be lured by Harvard, which plans to become coeducational with or without Westlake.

If Westlake does merge with Harvard, the Marlborough School in Hancock Park will clearly be the leading secular girls’ high school in the area.

Westlake’s tuition is $8,350 a year, while Harvard students pay $7,750. Neither school is in financial difficulty.

Reynolds said Friday that the parents response was more “vituperative” than he expected. “We clearly heard last night people need more information and more time to consider the information.”

Parents questioned the premise on which the merger was based: that Westlake is doomed to become a second-rate school in a few years when Harvard went coed on its own, as planned.

“What bothers me is these mythical 100 girls,” said parent MeraLee Goldman, a Beverly Hills planning commissioner. Goldman said she could not believe that, in a city the size of Los Angeles, there were not enough qualified girls available to maintain the school’s standards.

Parents are demanding an independent evaluation to satisfy them that the merger is necessary. Some parents said they were afraid that the merger will eventually lead to the sale of Westlake’s $40-million to $50-million, 11-acre parcel of land.

They passed out research articles--some of which they had been given by Reynolds--that show that girls perform better academically in a single-sex school.

UCLA professor Karen Hill-Scott, a Westlake parent, said she did not doubt that the “young men and old men” at Harvard believed in equality, but she did have doubts about whether they had any idea what that meant. At a session where students from both schools discussed the merger, Hill-Scott overheard a Harvard administrator say, “When the girls come to Harvard they will make it a warmer and gentler place.”