Leuzinger High Security Chief’s Son Led Protest : Education: Walkout organizer says rumors of racism made him fear for his father’s job. School officials plan to meet with students today.

As Bert Best, the head of security at Leuzinger High School, worked frantically to herd protesting students out of the street and back onto campus this week, his son, Bert Best Jr., was explaining to the media how he and a handful of other students had organized the walkout.

For the 18-year-old Best, the reasons for this week’s protests in the Centinela Valley Union High School District were personal: He was a son sticking up for his father in the wake of rumors that black employees were in danger of losing their jobs.

Best said he had heard about the race-related incidents and rumors that have surfaced in the district this school year. One rumor was that Ken Crowe, the popular principal of Hawthorne High School, was on his way out.

Crowe, one of two minority principals in the four-school district, announced his resignation last week after the school board told him that he would be reassigned. He changed his mind after the protests broke out. However, the news that the school board had taken action against Crowe surprised and frightened the teen-ager.

“I just know if (school board members) can get Ken Crowe, you can’t be sure who’s next,” Bert Best Jr. said. “It could be my dad.”

The students who walked out of Leuzinger and Hawthorne high schools this week said they were frustrated by months of lingering rumors of racism, angered by Crowe’s planned transfer and concerned about who could be next.

The demonstrations were planned Sunday night at the home of the security chief and his son.

Malcolm Ratliff, 17, one of the organizers, said he met with the younger Best and a few other friends to plan the protest and divide up duties Sunday night. About 400 flyers, some of them handwritten, were distributed Monday morning to notify students, he said, and the rest depended on word of mouth.

Bert Best Jr. said he kept the protest a secret from his father because “I didn’t know how he would feel.”

His father, who declined to say what he thinks of his son’s involvement, said he found out about the walkout Monday morning along with other school officials. He said he was not involved in the protest and did not know anything about claims by some students that Leuzinger security guards urged them to join Monday’s protest.

“I’m supervisor of security,” the senior Best said. “Why would I want a massive exodus of two to three thousand students causing chaos in this school?”

Students launched the first protest at Leuzinger on Monday morning and then marched to Hawthorne High, where their numbers swelled to about 2,000. On Tuesday, about 500 students walked out of Leuzinger, while police officers prevented all but about 50 students from leaving Hawthorne High.

School board members have repeatedly denied that the district intends to fire minority administrators and have called for the state Department of Education to look into the district’s racial tension.

But protest organizers maintain that the school board has not been open with the community. They were particularly upset Tuesday when the school board canceled a press conference called by Supt. McKinley Nash to air the students’ grievances.

On Wednesday, the school board agreed to meet with student representatives at the two campuses today. Nash said the meetings, to be closed to the press, will give students an opportunity to discuss their concerns with him, the board members and school principals.

Nash said he expects no more walkouts.

“It’s over now. It’s over,” he said.

Officers from several law-enforcement agencies were stationed at both campuses Wednesday but reported no disturbances. Hawthorne police, who had threatened students with arrest if they left the campus, referred eight Hawthorne High students to the truancy office Wednesday.

There were no arrests at Leuzinger. However, students later said that four demonstrators were suspended and about a dozen others were told to leave the campus for the rest of the day during a brief sit-in at Leuzinger on Wednesday morning.

Student organizers said they were delighted that hundreds of students joined in their cause, but they reluctantly admitted that many were hangers-on who were using the walkout as an opportunity to skip class en masse.

Ratliff estimated that only 25% of the hundreds of students who walked out of Leuzinger this week really understood what they were protesting. “For every serious protester, there are a few others who are just partying,” he said.

That alone was enough to keep some concerned students away.

Yahira Silvera, a 15-year-old Leuzinger sophomore, participated in the Monday protest but decided to attend classes Tuesday. Silvera said she realized that many of the students were not serious about the protest when they walked out of a special assembly called Tuesday to discuss student concerns.

“We had an assembly to talk it out, and most people didn’t want to hear,” Silvera said. “They wanted to get on TV or miss class.”

Security officials, who locked the gates at Leuzinger High on Tuesday to keep television cameras out, agreed that media attention played a role in egging the students on.

When students ran out the front doors of Leuzinger on Tuesday morning, the guards said, they headed straight for the television cameras.

One student said he was interviewed by the media six times Tuesday. Ratliff wore a suit to school Tuesday for his television appearances.

Students had even mastered the language of the media.

“Want a sound bite?” one protester yelled to a cameraman.

“I’ve got the scoop,” another added.

Nonetheless, Bert Best Jr. said he was encouraged by the size of the protests and hopeful that the school board would address the students’ concerns.

“Very few (student protesters) know what’s going on,” Best said. “Half of them are just out here missing class. But there are a lot of people that do understand. That’s what matters.”

Times staff writers Hugo Martin and George Hatch contributed to this story.

CHRONOLOGY OF ESCALATING TENSION March, 1988: The school board promotes Ken Crowe, assistant principal and former dean of students at Hawthorne High, to principal.

April, 1989: Crowe confiscates a mannequin designed to look like a dead black man from a white film teacher, who says it was a teaching aid. Michael Gold, the teacher, files a claim against the district seeking punitive damages.

April, 1989: Hawthorne High English teacher Charles Prater, who is black, receives a threatening note after he asks administrators to include minority authors on the English reading list.

May, 1989: Leuzinger High Acting Principal Sonja Davis, who is of mixed race, receives an offensive card bearing a handwritten message that affects black dialect and suggests an improper relationship between Davis and Supt. McKinley Nash.

August, 1989: The school board appoints Davis permanent principal of Leuzinger High.

September, 1989: Teachers union President Nancy Nuesseler refers to Nash, who is black, as a “Stepin Fetchit” for state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who is white.

Oct. 25, 1989: School board candidate Pam Sturgeon, who is white, reports that she was struck in the neck, robbed and threatened by a black male in the Lawndale City Hall parking lot.

Oct. 27, 1989: Hawthorne High track Coach Kye Courtney files a defamation claim against the district, claiming that Supt. Nash led a conspiracy intended to ruin Courtney’s reputation by spreading slanderous rumors and that a school district employee, a member of the Black Heritage Assn., called the mother of a track team member and said Courtney was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Nov. 7, 1989: Three school board challengers, including two endorsed by the district’s predominantly white teachers union, upset incumbents supportive of Nash, the black superintendent.

Nov. 8, 1989: A white Hawthorne High teacher allegedly gloats to students that the newly elected school board will remove minority administrators, leading one minority student and her parents to file a formal complaint.

Nov. 28, 1989: Three newly elected board members take office and are barraged with complaints from parents, educators and community leaders about racial tension.

January, 1990: An investigation by the school district’s attorney concludes that some teachers have harassed minority administrators by sending anonymous notes and cartoons.

Jan. 23, 1990: The state office of the NAACP begins examining racial problems at Centinela Valley schools.

Feb. 13, 1990: The school board asks the state Department of Education to study racial tensions in the district.

Feb. 28, 1990: Hawthorne High Principal Crowe announces he will resign at the end of the school year. He later says he acted because the school board told him that he would be reassigned.

March 5, 1990: About 2,000 students from Hawthorne and Leuzinger high schools walk out of classes to protest the district’s handling of Crowe.

March 6, 1990: Five youths and two adults are arrested during a second day of demonstrations at the two high schools.