Racial Rift Persists at Centinela in Wake of Nash’s Firing

Reaction to Friday’s firing of Supt. McKinley Nash from the Centinela Valley Union High School District fell along the same racial and political lines that have divided the district during the past two years, with blacks and other supporters expressing outrage and some teachers and other critics expressing relief.

Supporters described Nash, who is black, as a visionary who worked to improve the lot of minorities, who inspired administrators and students, and who became a victim of politics and racism in the polarized district.

“The students of this district have lost an excellent educational leader,” said Donna Opoku-Agyeman, associate principal at Leuzinger High School.

But his critics said Nash was a poor administrator who did not support teachers, who failed to improve educational standards in the district, and who cried racism whenever anyone raised criticisms about his administration.

“I think the district’s problems, such as they were, stemmed from the superintendent himself,” said Arnold Tena, political action chair of the Centinela Valley Secondary Teachers Assn. “I think . . . the racial tensions that surfaced will now be gone. . . . There seems to be an air of relief.”

Nash had been superintendent since 1984. The board declined to state any reason for its decision to terminate his contract, under which he earned nearly $90,000 a year and which was not due to expire until 1993.

The board appointed former Supt. Tom Barkelew, who left the district in 1979, to serve as acting superintendent. The board also temporarily reappointed Bernie McGuire to his former position as assistant superintendent of educational services, a post he retired from last year.

Nash’s attorney, George W. Shaeffer Jr., said the board did not offer to buy out the remaining portion of Nash’s contract, and he said he has sent a letter demanding payment.

Wes Apker, director of the Assn. of California School Administrators, said school boards rarely terminate contracts early without a settlement or buyout offer.

Black teachers and administrators in the ethnically diverse district have reported a number of racially charged incidents in the past two years, including the distribution of racially offensive notes and cartoons. The allegations are being investigated by the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces anti-discrimination laws among educational institutions that receive federal funding.

Tensions came to a head this spring when students staged two days of massive walkouts to protest allegations of racism and the threatened resignation of Kenneth Crowe, a black principal at Hawthorne High School. The state Department of Education’s Office of Intergroup Relations assessed the district’s racial tensions after the walkouts and is due to release its report this week.

Although members of the black community and others have accused the board of ignoring the district’s racial problems, several teachers and parents have said the racial incidents were overblown. Some teachers and parents suggested that Crowe and Nash helped orchestrate the walkouts; an investigator hired by the district to determine who was behind the walkouts is expected to issue a report this week.

Although several teachers hailed the board’s decision to fire Nash, many remained cautious about whether it would help the district overcome its problems.

“In the last couple years, the district has been in such turmoil that the move was probably a good one in terms of settling the district down,” said Neil Minami, president of the Centinela Valley Secondary Teachers Assn. “I think it remains to be seen what happens . . . but all the people I’ve talked to said they thought it was time for a change.”

Nash had appeared to be on a collision course with the district’s predominantly Latino school board since the November election, when challengers unseated three incumbent trustees who had strongly supported Nash.

The predominantly white teachers union, which had been embroiled in a bitter contract dispute with the administration, led the drive to unseat the incumbents, backing two of the three challengers.

Shortly after the election, rumors began circulating that the new board planned to fire black administrators, partly as a political payoff to the teachers union. Trustees said they had no such plans, and union members denied racial issues had anything to do with their desire to dislodge Nash.

Tena said it was unfortunate that racial allegations became tied to the union’s lobbying efforts because “bad administrators come in all colors.”

Nash, however, insists that racial issues played a role in his firing.

“One thing I have been offended by,” Nash said in an interview Saturday, “is that if we are black, incompetence always seems to be the issue. Incompetence seems to be a code word for blackness.”

Francine Patterson, a black parent in the district, agreed, saying Nash’s firing came as “a slap in the face to all black people, whether they’re aware of what is happening or not. . . . Our entire country is going through racism, and this is a small example of what is happening all over.”

The long-simmering tensions between Nash and the trustees finally erupted into open conflict during a board meeting May 22 when Nash defied the board by speaking publicly in support of Crowe, who was later reassigned to a teaching position.

At the same meeting, the board voted to alter its policies to allow the trustees to exclude Nash from their closed sessions. The board also voted that night to drop a local version of Jobs for American Graduates, a nationally renowned program to stem dropouts, for which Nash had vigorously campaigned.

Black community activist Adrain Briggs, who has a nephew enrolled in the district, said the May meeting “was probably the first time (Nash) spoke strongly against what was going on” and that it became clear then that his days in the district were numbered.

But Betty Knight, a white parent in the district, said, “I think they should have fired him long ago because he hasn’t helped the district or backed up the parents.”

Nash’s departure from his previous post as assistant superintendent of the Evanston Township High School District in Evanston, Ill., also came amid controversy, with black leaders staging protests after Nash’s position was eliminated.

Although some critics have tried to draw parallels between Nash’s experiences in Evanston and in the Centinela Valley district, Inglewood School District trustee Zyra McCloud, who chairs the NAACP’s Inglewood education committee, said it would be a mistake to conclude that Centinela Valley’s problems stem from Nash.

“It is not Dr. McKinley Nash who has created this monster and who has caused racial tensions, but it is the board and the way it has handled the crisis,” McCloud said. “If they feel the termination of Nash will solve the problems of racial overtones in the Centinela Valley Union High School District and the politics on that school board, they’re in for a major surprise.”

Times staff writer George Hatch contributed to this story.