The Superintendent’s Mixed Legacy : Education: The retiring head of the Beverly Hills district will leave behind an academically sound but financially troubled system.

The superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District retires at the end of this school year, leaving a district notable not only for its academic fame and strong parental involvement, but also for its financial troubles and many disillusioned teachers.

Robert L. French, who saw the district through its first strike last fall, will step down June 30 for personal reasons, he announced late last week.

Sol Levine, assistant superintendent for curriculum and former principal at Beverly Hills High School, will become acting superintendent.

The school board will begin a search for a new superintendent in the fall, board President Frank Fenton said.

Fenton and others said that French’s announcement was unexpected.

“We were all taken completely by surprise,” said board member Dana Tomarken, noting that the five-member board chose French as superintendent out of 80 candidates three years ago.

French said his reasons for retiring are “entirely personal.” He said he will remain available as a consultant and wants to teach administration and instruction methods at a university. He said he and his family also plan to expand their remodeling and interior design business, in which French’s role includes a considerable amount of construction work, such as laying tiles, hanging doors and installing appliances.

“I’m not really retiring, I’m really changing jobs,” he said. “Mentally, I’m not retiring. . . . I’ll never retire.”

French declined to say whether the district’s financial and labor troubles played a part in his decision, but school board members suggested that there might be a connection.

“There wasn’t a great period of time for him or the board to concentrate on education,” Fenton said. “We’ve been so busy with economic matters.”

“He’s the kind of superintendent that gave his all,” added Tomarken, who was board president during last year’s strike.

In 1987, early in his tenure, French drew praise from board members and teachers for his role in bringing about a contract settlement and averting a strike.

By last year, however, his relations with the teachers union, the Beverly Hills Education Assn., had deteriorated.

“We have found him difficult to deal with, and there were times we felt as though he was not concerned with our teachers’ needs,” union President Judy McIntire said in an interview this week. “We don’t need controlling administrators. We need administrators who are willing to be partners with the teachers.”

During the two-week teachers’ strike last fall, the superintendent fielded phone calls from anxious parents and insisted that the district’s budget did not leave room for the salaries and working conditions the teachers were initially demanding. With Proposition 13’s ceiling on property taxes, a state Supreme Court decision that ordered the state to equalize funding among school districts and the district’s declining enrollment, Beverly Hills schools have fallen on hard times, he said.

The strike settlement provided for pay increases that partly depend on parent contributions and on the passage of a tax on parcels of commercial and residential property. The tax increase is on the June 5 ballot and needs the approval of two-thirds of the voters to take effect.

French said that during his three years as superintendent, the district stopped a pattern of deficit spending. If the parcel tax does not pass, the district projects a budget deficit of about $3 million in an overall budget of $29 million for the 1990-91 school year. To balance the budget, the administration says it would have to lay off 45 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians.

French came to Beverly Hills after serving as superintendent of Piedmont Unified School District in Northern California.

He started in education as a high school chemistry teacher in 1956 and has described teaching as the most rewarding part of his career.