Principal Caught in Tug of War of School Policies : Education: Westchester High among the 70 schools in a pilot program to test school-based management. But the principal may be ‘bumped’ into another job before the program starts.

Westchester High School Principal Eileen Banta is caught between the old way of doing things in the Los Angeles Unified School District and what may be the wave of the future.

If you find her back at her desk in Westchester next September, it will be mean the school board and district is committed to supporting a system of self-governance known as school-based-management, said Helen Bernstein, United Teachers of Los Angeles president-elect.

If Banta is not, Bernstein said, school-based management is doomed. “It’s a revolution, and you have to change the rules.”

Westchester High is one of 70 schools in a pilot program that will try school-based management next year, a daunting task in a district noted for its centralized bureaucracy.

This partnership approach, with the involvement of principals, teachers and parents, is expected to sweep through the schools in the next several years.

But this is also the year of budget cuts, and Banta is ensnared in the belt-tightening effort in a district where seniority rules. She has been told to prepare herself to be “bumped.”

That means an administrator whose job was eliminated by the board’s efforts to trim the bureaucracy is entitled to go back to being a school principal, creating a domino effect in the district.

Proponents of the teamwork approach say it will be disastrous to switch principals in mid-stream. Banta’s possible replacement, an as-yet-unnamed district administrator, may not share her philosophy or priorities, which are incorporated into the school’s proposal to rule itself.

A principal’s role in the development and implementation of school-based management is pivotal. “They are the ones who have to set up the team to move the issue,” said school board member Warren Furutani. “If you don’t have a team, it’s not going to work.”

The issue goes beyond Banta to a handful of other principals on the short list to be bumped and, Bernstein insists, to the heart of the matter of local school rule.

Why, she asks, would any school go through the time-consuming, sometimes fractious process of reaching consensus on the direction of the school if the principal might not be there to help implement the plan?

According to Bernstein, other urban districts that have adopted school-based management have included provisions protecting principals from transfer for a specified number of years. If an exception is not made for Banta and others in her situation, “there will be no school-based management” in Los Angeles, Bernstein said.

Banta’s faculty agrees. In a letter to school Supt. Leonard Britton, the union representative at Westchester described the faculty as “distraught” at the prospect of losing Banta.

Each of the four principals at the school in the last seven years “has been totally different in style, goals and strengths,” wrote teacher Adrienne Zeigler. “There is no generic principal.”

The issue is slated for resolution at the school board budget-cutting session today. The board could opt to exempt principals at schools in the pilot project. Westside board member Mark Slavkin said he will present a way around the dilemma by moving to rescind the $500,000 budget cut and keep the administrators, so they will not be in a position to bump anyone.

Slavkin said only about six secondary school principals in the district are threatened by the cuts. “My goal is to save all the secondary school principals,” as a way of maintaining continuity at the schools.

This solution solves another dilemma for Slavkin, who is trying to keep the Venice High School principal, who is not in the pilot program, from being bumped. If an exemption is granted to principals in the pilot program, the Venice principal would zoom to the top of the transfer list, which, Slavkin said is unfair.

Slavkin agreed that his proposal is really a way around a problem, not a long-term solution, which requires careful policy consideration in a less pressured atmosphere, he said.

His plan may also be a way around the school administrators’ group, the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, who have urged the district to adhere to its seniority policy or risk legal action. “Not the least of our concern is (UTLA’s) involvement in the assignment of principals,” said Walker Brown, executive director of the association.

Britton has told the board by letter that he is opposed to making an exception for those principals at schools on their way to self-rule.

“Any time you run into waiving rules, you run into the system,” said board member Furutani.

Banta, meanwhile, is unhappy at the prospect of leaving just as Westchester is about to participate in the new program. “You get so into your job at this level, you can’t imagine anything else,” said Banta, who describes 15 hour days immersed in her assignment.

She was finishing a successful first year as principal when the ax fell. A “we-regret-to-inform-you letter” landed on her desk a week ago, she said. “It just took us by shock. . . . 72 hours ago I could barely form words.”

The notification that she was in line for transfer next year had nothing to do with Banta’s job performance, the letter stated. To the contrary, Banta draws kudos from her faculty, parents and Slavkin.

The letter to Banta arrived at the time the school was mailing ballots to parents, outlining their proposal to partially run their own school next year. The faculty had already approved the plan by a wide margin.

The proposals were wrought from a laborious process and represent a meeting of the minds between the principal, the faculty and the parents on the goals and direction of the school, located on Manchester Boulevard, west of Lincoln Boulevard, near the border of Westchester and Playa del Rey.

But Banta, while acknowledging her transfer would be disruptive, is optimistic that school-based management will prevail at Westchester. “There is no turning back,” she said. “If you write a good proposal it will stand on its own merits and we wrote a good proposal.”