State to Investigate School’s Transcripts at Request of Supt. : Education: Inglewood High School Principal Lawrence Freeman says superintendent’s move is part of a vendetta against him.

The state Department of Education is planning to send three investigators to Inglewood in late January at the request of Supt. George McKenna to look into possible transcript irregularities at Inglewood High School, district and state officials said Thursday.

It could not be learned exactly what irregularities are alleged or the number of transcripts involved. Inglewood school board member Thomasina Reed said the investigation may involve students being given grades for classes they never attended.

James Smith, deputy superintendent for curriculum and instructional leadership in the state Department of Education, confirmed Thursday that McKenna wrote to the state in mid-November requesting an outside investigation into “possible irregularities of reporting student grades on official district transcripts.” Smith said McKenna considered the matter serious.

McKenna was out of town Thursday and could not be reached. Board President Larry Aubry declined to comment, and Assistant Supt. Lynn Colvin said comment on the letter would have to come from McKenna.

Smith said the investigative team will be composed of an administrator, auditor and fiscal officer. They will meet with McKenna soon, spend a “couple of days” reviewing the high school’s records and then issue a report, Smith said.

Ples Griffin, director of the state’s Office of Guidance Support Services, will head the team. He will meet with McKenna to begin the investigation in late January, he said Thursday.

Calling any request for an investigation uncommon, Smith said this is the only time in his memory that a local district has asked the state to investigate irregularities in student transcripts.

The outside investigation at Inglewood High School, one of three high schools in the Inglewood Unified School District, is a follow-up to an internal audit by the district earlier this fall. Eight file cabinet drawers and three cardboard boxes of student transcripts--covering the period from 1985 to the present--were taken from the school about six weeks ago by district officials for an audit, then returned a week later, employees at the high school said Thursday.

Inglewood High School Principal Lawrence Freeman, who knew that records were removed from his school, was angry Thursday when informed of the state investigation by a reporter.

Freeman said he has nothing to hide but resents being treated “as if I’m some kind of thief in the night (who alters) people’s records.”

He described the investigation as part of an attempt by McKenna to remove him as principal, saying that the only records that were inspected by the district were from his six-year tenure as principal of the 2,100-student school.

McKenna and Freeman have been at odds before. McKenna suspended Freeman in September, 1988, for interfering with adult classes held at the high school. That came even before McKenna officially became superintendent. McKenna ordered Freeman to leave the campus again in June, this time for scuffling with the basketball coach in the principal’s office. McKenna has said that he is not out to get Freeman.

“This to me is a real vote of no confidence,” Freeman said. “If I had any sense in the world, I should just get up and walk out and go out on stress. But I’m not a quitter.”

Freeman said he has heard of no complaints about the school’s records in the past and denied that he or anyone he knows has tampered with student records.

“Any time anyone graduates from this school I certify that they fulfilled all the requirements,” Freeman said, acknowledging that he does not keep student records himself. “I don’t know what (McKenna) is looking for. It seems like a personal vendetta to me.”

Other board members reached Thursday declined to give details on the substance of the investigation.

Reed said she learned about the allegations against Inglewood High School within the last few months. “We want to know what’s wrong, if there is anything,” she said.

Board member Zyra McCloud said she first heard about the investigation in late November after a school employee told her that the school’s records were taken to the district office. She complained that the board was not being adequately notified of the allegations.