Routine Transfer of Principal Draws Protest : Schools: Eagle Rock parents and teachers who don’t want to see the principal bumped because of budget cuts have persuaded the Board of Education to reconsider the matter.

To the Los Angeles Unified School District, it was a mechanical process based on seniority: Sheila Watson, principal of Eagle Rock Elementary School since January, would be reassigned as an assistant principal elsewhere in the district. A higher ranking administrator whose job was eliminated due to budget cuts would take over Eagle Rock.

That was a process the district is using to deal with massive budget cuts, and Watson reluctantly had accepted her fate, calling it a fair and impartial system.

But Eagle Rock parents and teachers, who faced the prospect of a third new principal in a year, took it personally. They held a rally last week at the small school on Fair Park Avenue and protested before the board this week. Their message: Leave Sheila Watson alone.

“There have been so many changes at our school during the last year, and there will be so many more with teachers retiring, construction going on, a new building going up and the school going year-round,” said Kristie Denzer, president of the school’s PTA. “The possibility that we could lose Sheila Watson scares us to death.”

“Things just don’t roll along on their own momentum,” added Suzanne Kagan, a United Teachers-Los Angeles representative at the school. “Ms. Watson is a spearhead for getting things done. She’s a real fighter.”

The message may have gotten through. Responding to outcry from the school and community in her district, Board of Education member Leticia Quezada has asked the board to allow Watson to stay at Eagle Rock. District officials said they are optimistic about Watson’s chances. The board is expected to vote tonight on the issue.

“It just wouldn’t be healthy for the faculty or the community” to move Watson out and a district administrator in, said Ernie Delgado, a spokesman for Quezada. “She seems to have done a lot within a six-month period, and they seem to like her style, so why change it?”

Since January, Watson, who took over Eagle Rock after the former principal left to head a larger, year-round school, has garnered remarkable support, Kagan said.

Watson was informed June 15 by the district that because of budget cuts, she most likely would lose her position at the end of the month. She was told she would be replaced by a district administrator whose position had been cut and would be reassigned as an assistant principal elsewhere.

Three days later, Eagle Rock teachers, parents and students began writing letters to the Board of Education in protest. A rally in front of the school last week drew more than 75 supporters, who carried placards and clapped and cheered for Watson--who at the time was hundreds of miles away at a funeral and unaware of the event.

On Monday, five parents attended a Board of Education meeting to express their concern.

“Our last principal was very well-liked and talented, but before Sheila Watson came in, teacher morale was low, really low and the children, their morale was low. Discipline was at its worst,” Denzer said Tuesday. “In the six months she was there, everything just picked up. She’s a very upbeat, go-get-’em woman.”

Watson, who was an assistant principal at Hoover Street School downtown before becoming principal at Eagle Rock, said she felt awkward about the outcry because she knew of other principals whose positions were threatened because of budget cuts and did not want to be favored.

“I love this school and I really want to stay,” Watson said. “I’m very fortunate to have very vocal, very supportive parents and teachers. But many other people are facing the same situation. Everyone I know personally has worked just as hard as I have.”

Watson is the lone administrator at the Eagle Rock campus, which has an enrollment of 850 students in a regular elementary program, two gifted magnet programs and three special education classes. The magnets have part-time coordinators, but Watson oversees the programs, Denzer and others said.

Watson faced some opposition to her proposal to initiate bilingual classes next year, Kagan, Denzer and others said. The classes would combine Spanish- and English-speaking students and be assisted by aides who would translate the teacher’s instruction into Spanish, they said.

But she generally has gained widespread approval. Parents and teachers have credited her with smoothly stepping in as principal when classrooms are crowded and reconstruction is months behind schedule.

Her supporters said she is known for spending recesses and lunch hours with students, particularly those who are disruptive in the classroom.

Watson also has made a variety of popular proposals, including working more closely with Eagle Rock High School, which serves children in grades seven through 12, to prepare elementary students for higher grades, said Lucy Cole, a parent of an elementary school student.

Most important, Cole said, parents and teachers are counting on Watson to lead the school through its next challenges: Construction of a new building will begin in January and year-round education will start in 1991. And teachers and parents are expected to be given more say in the way the school is run, as a result of contract negotiations with teachers last summer.

“It’s not that we’re really good friends or that we’ve known her for years and years,” said Linda Cassidy, an Eagle Rock teacher for 22 years. “We’re just impressed with her dealings with parents, her dealings with teachers. She has come in with a lot of new ideas and is making change in a gradual way.”