Teachers Angry Over Transfers

Teachers at Hillcrest School in Redondo Beach are denouncing the reassignment of the junior high school’s principal and its student adviser, calling the decisions arbitrary and damaging to Hillcrest’s operations.

Seventeen of Hillcrest’s 21 teachers have signed a statement criticizing the return of Principal Michael Trownsell to teaching status and the transfer of adviser Kathy Brugger to Lincoln Elementary School.

“As a faculty, we honestly feel that the arbitrary decisions . . . are not in the best interests of the students, the community, or the faculty,” said the June 15 statement, sent to Redondo Beach City Teachers Assn. Director Lauren Sanders.

Hillcrest mathematics instructor Norman Lowthorp said teachers are angered because district officials did not consult them about the reassignments of Trownsell and Brugger, both of whom the teachers hold in high regard.

“We had no input,” Lowthrop said Friday. “No one asked us how we thought the school was being run. . . . We’re left out. We’re demoralized and a little bewildered.”

Nick Parras, Redondo Beach City School District superintendent, said Brugger is being transferred because her job is being eliminated to make room for an assistant principal’s post at the school.

He declined to discuss the reason for Trownsell’s reassignment, calling it a confidential personnel matter. Trownsell, however, said he received a letter from district officials last year saying he would be reassigned unless he improved his relations with non-teaching personnel.

Asked to explain, Trownsell said he had antagonized the district’s personnel manager. He declined to elaborate. Wayne Kurlak, the district’s assistant superintendent for personnel services, could not be reached for comment.

Parras said Trownsell’s replacement as Hillcrest’s principal will be Katherine Tellez, currently assistant principal at Kennedy High School in La Palma.

Trownsell’s reassignment was approved by the Redondo Beach City School District Board of Education in a closed session Feb. 20, district officials said. Brugger’s transfer was decided by district administrators because it did not involve a demotion, they said.

Both moves are scheduled to take effect for the coming school year, but it is unclear whether Trownsell and Brugger will stay in the district. Trownsell indicated that he is looking for an administrative post in another district but added: “I will be teaching here next year if I have to be.”

Brugger, who said she first learned of her reassignment on June 11, said she has not had time to make plans because she received no warning of the change.

“I haven’t done anything,” Brugger said Friday, adding that district officials had told her that her job would be secure when she interviewed for it in 1987. “I’ve kind of been in a daze.”

Sanders said there is nothing his union can do to fight Trownsell’s removal since it involves administrative personnel. But he said the union may take action on behalf of Brugger, who is a member of the bargaining unit.

“We may file a grievance because she would like to stay at Hillcrest,” Sanders said. “She knows it well.”

That view is shared by Hillcrest Student Council Secretary Lauren Chan, a seventh-grader who last week gave the school board a petition in support of Brugger that was signed by nearly half of the school’s 375 students.

“It’s going to be hard to get used to a new person,” Chan said. “Ms. Brugger was really nice.”

Kate Griffin, president of the Hillside PTA, said the group has a policy of not getting involved in what she termed political disputes. But Griffin said Trownsell and Brugger will be missed.

“The teachers speak highly of them, and the kids love them,” she said.