Beleaguered Schools Chief Diana Peters Resigns Post : Education: Huntington Beach board and superintendent reach an agreement that will have her leave job on Tuesday. Result is seen as a victory for teachers.

In an upheaval of the Huntington Beach City School District’s top administration, the school board on Wednesday announced Supt. Diana Peters is resigning and two other high-level executives are also leaving the district.

Peters’ resignation, which is effective Tuesday, represents “an amicable resolution of philosophical differences between the board and the superintendent,” board President Sherry Barlow said in a prepared statement. Although neither board members nor Peters would elaborate on the terms of her resignation, it was seen as a victory for the Huntington Beach Elementary Teachers Assn.

The union had blamed Peters for labor unrest since she became superintendent four years ago. During the 1989-90 contract talks, which dragged on for a full year and were marked by picketing and a teachers’ boycott of extracurricular activities, the union overwhelmingly supported a vote of no confidence in Peters but stopped short of calling for her resignation.

“We’re hopeful to enter a new era of bargaining that did not seem possible with the present administration,” said Sharon Boudreau, the union’s president. “The trust level had deteriorated to such a level that anything like that seemed out of the question. We would like to have a good working relationship with the district, like we had in the past.”

Under an agreement reached between Peters and the board during six closed-session meetings held since Saturday, trustees and Peters are forbidden from publicly discussing details of the agreement.

The only aspects of the pact that were released are that Peters will be paid $126,952 plus 46 days of accumulated vacation pay in exchange for her resignation from her contract that expires in June, 1993. Officials declined to explain what the payment to Peters, 44, who earns about $78,000 a year, specifically represents.

Peters was hired by the district in August, 1984, as principal of John H. Eader School in Huntington Beach. Within a few weeks, however, she was appointed assistant superintendent of educational services, a job she held for nearly two years.

In June, 1986, the school board appointed Peters as superintendent, replacing Larry Kemper, who left the position to become the Garden Grove Unified School District’s top administrator. Kemper has since taken over as superintendent of the Huntington Beach Union High School District.

The managerial shake-up leaves the district in a difficult position midway through the summer recess. Among the district’s top four administrators, only Gary Burgner, assistant superintendent of financial services, is now expected to remain for the 1990-91 school year. Burgner will serve as interim superintendent until the board can appoint a successor.

Burgner downplayed the administrative crisis, saying: “There’s no way this should be interpreted as turmoil. We have a wealth of talented people here and we will continue to proceed in an organized manner.”

Board members will begin accepting applications next month to fill the administrative vacancies. No deadline has been set for finding replacements, but district officials said they want to be fully staffed when the new school year begins in September.

Administration officials said the resignations of two assistant superintendents, Ronald Brown and Becky Turrentine, are not related to Peters’ ouster. However, Boudreau and other teachers union leaders who work closely with administrators during contract talks said that Brown and Turrentine have long been disillusioned and frustrated working under Peters.

Brown, assistant superintendent of personnel, is retiring from the district Aug. 13 to accept an executive position with the Assn. of California School Administrators, based in Los Alamitos. Brown, 57, has been the administration’s lead negotiator in labor discussions. He is vacationing and was not available for comment.

Brown, whose career in education dates back to the 1950s, moved to the Huntington Beach City School District as a principal in August, 1977. He become director of personnel a year later, and in June, 1981, he became the department’s assistant superintendent.

The district’s assistant superintendent of educational services, Turrentine, 43, will resign her post Aug. 3 to assume a similar job with the Bellflower Unified School District. Her current duties include the coordination and monitoring of school programs.

Turrentine has worked five years for the district. She spent her first year as coordinator of special services.