Centinela Board to Hire Outside Panel to Advise on School Issues

Centinela Valley Union High School District trustees voted 3 to 1 Tuesday to hire a four-member team of consultants to advise the board for one year on policy matters, district management, fiscal issues and educational instruction.

The board, which has been under fire for months over allegations of racism in the district, voted for the team despite objections from parents and community activists, who noted that no parent would be included on the review team and who said that the board had never discussed the issue in public.

“Where did you get the recommendation to even have such a committee?” Adrain Briggs called out from the audience before the board voted on the proposal. “Where is the input of the parents? Don’t they have a role in this?”

But Trustee Pam Sturgeon, who said she first proposed at a February meeting that the board receive some guidance from a professional organization, said she believed parents would not be able to provide the kind of advice and direction that the board needs. “I really hope that at this point the community will give us the chance to find out our faults from the professionals in these areas and to be able to correct them,” Sturgeon said moments before voting in favor of the review team.

Also voting in favor were Trustees Ruth Morales and Jacqueline Carrera. Trustee Amparo Font voted against the proposal without comment. Trustee Michael Escalante was absent because of illness.

Board members said in interviews Wednesday that the idea of creating a 12-month review team was recommended to them by Maureen DiMarco, president of the California School Boards Assn.

The association--which provides guidance to school boards--is one of four organizations that will provide representatives for the review team. The others are the Assn. of California School Administrators, the California Teachers Assn. and the California Assn. of School Business Officials.

The board did not indicate how much they expect the organizations to charge the district for their services, but Morales said she would have some information on what the team will cost by the board’s next meeting on July 10.

Review teams were popular in the 1960s but have been used less frequently in recent years, DiMarco said in an interview Wednesday. The association recommended that the board create an updated version of a review team after attending a meeting in early March with state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) to develop a 10-point plan to ease racial tensions in the district.

The meeting was convened a few days after students at two district high schools staged massive walkouts to protest alleged racism in the district and the resignation of Hawthorne Principal Kenneth Crowe, who is black.

“This (the review body) is consistent with what people have asked for,” DiMarco said. “It’s not something that sprang out of the blue.”

Before the vote, Morales read from a prepared statement that said the proposed team would “assess and review the district.” She said the board intends to “concentrate on goals and planning to achieve those goals” and promises to ensure an equitable distribution of the district’s resources.

Morales also appealed for cooperation from the public, saying that Sturgeon, Font and Carrera, who were elected last fall, “have not been given a chance to perform.” Unlike recent meetings of the board, which have been adjourned early because of disruptions from the audience, Tuesday’s meeting drew about 60 spectators and was comparatively quiet.

The team will make its recommendations to the board in quarterly progress reports for one year, Morales said, and the board will respond in writing to every recommendation made.

Supt. McKinley M. Nash said he supported the review team but urged the board to assure the public that all of its recommendations and meetings would be public. Morales said the recommendations would be public but that the team’s meetings may be in private.

Though Font offered no comments during the board meeting about her decision, she said in an interview Wednesday that she has opposed the proposal since the moment she first heard about it.

“You don’t have to be an expert to be a board member, as long as you have the desire to work with the community and the administration,” she said.

Font also said she was concerned about how much the review team would cost the district, especially at a time when the board is being asked to cut the budget for the coming school year by $1.8 million.

“I don’t like the idea of anyone coming in from the outside,” Font said. “I think we are the board and we (should) have the control.”

On Tuesday, the board unanimously approved a tentative $27.1-million budget, after cutting it $1.2 million. However, Assistant Supt. Robert Church said the board needs to trim an additional $600,000 from the proposed budget to comply with state requirements that a school district reserve 3% of its funds for emergencies.

Church said the cuts are needed because of a decrease in state funding and a large decline in average daily attendance, on which some state funding is based.