Lynwood Trustees Buy Out Supt. Pact

Saying they had lost confidence in the superintendent’s ability to turn their troubled school system around, the Lynwood Unified School District Board of Education agreed Monday to buy out the top administrator’s contract for $195,000.

The board voted 3 to 2 to accept the resignation of LaVoneia Steele, superintendent of the district for more than four years, including a tumultuous time of problems with crowded classrooms, poorly maintained schools and a teacher exodus that showed no sign of ending.

The 14,500-student district was fined $360,000 last year by the state Department of Education for violating the state’s limit on class sizes.

The school year began last fall with picketing by parents at campuses and at the superintendent’s office to complain about crowded classrooms, too few teachers and dirty campuses.

Some teachers left to take better-paying jobs in the Los Angeles Unified School District last May. At the time, Lynwood teachers had been working for more than a year without a contract.

Union officials estimated that as many as 100 of the district’s 650 teachers resigned.

Board members refused to discuss specifically why they took the action, but Board President Joe Battle said a majority of board members “lost confidence” in Steele.

Dissenting board member Richard Armstrong described the board’s action as “one of the most reprehensible, vicious, downright evil acts” he had ever witnessed. He said it came as a surprise to him that the board majority was dissatisfied with the job Steele was doing.

Armstrong said he and board member Rachel Chavez were informed during a Jan. 23 board meeting that a special meeting would be held Monday to discuss the superintendent. They said the board should have allowed time to discuss problems with the superintendent, and she should have had time to correct them. She had been the district’s chief administrator since 1985.

In a brief statement after the meeting, Steele said she had enjoyed working with the community and offered “best wishes to everybody.”

Chavez said “a deal was worked out” with the majority of the board agreeing to pay Steele $195,000 for her three-year contract, which had 21 months left to run. Steele’s salary was $81,000 a year.

The agreement, among other things, included more than $140,000 in salary, $17,000 in vacation pay and $21,000 in retirement and health benefits, Chavez said.

The agreement was reached in a two-hour closed session. Battle emerged from the meeting to announce that the board had voted “to accept the superintendent’s resignation, pursuant to her contract.”

During the meeting, the board appointed Associate Supt. Audrey Clarke interim superintendent.