TUSTIN : 3 Officials Demoted at Foothill High

Tustin Unified School District trustees have announced the demotion of Foothill High School’s principal and two assistant principals.

Principal James Ryan and assistant principals Rhonda Friedman and Pete Yoder will all be assigned to teaching positions, unless an administrative job becomes available for Ryan.

The board gave no reason for its announcement. Supt. David L. Andrews said he cannot discuss the reason because it is a personnel matter.

“It’s just a personnel change,” Andrews said. “Nobody’s being disciplined for anything.”

But Ryan said he was told that the board had made the change because there was a perception in the minds of some people that there are problems at Foothill High.

“I don’t think there’s any truth to that,” he said, citing increases in SAT and CAP scores in the last four years.

In addition, he said that he has started an educational foundation for the school that has raised $175,000 during his tenure and that he, Friedman and Yoder have received excellent evaluations.

“I just think that that’s not the way you treat employees,” Ryan said. “It didn’t have to be done the way it was done. They should have had some consideration for us as human beings. They announced it, and we didn’t have a chance to even respond to any charges.”

The changes were expected by neither the Foothill administrators nor parents, students and teachers.

Jeff Sanders, 17, a senior at Foothill, said that there is a general feeling among students that the school has gone downhill athletically and academically but that most students were shocked by the announcement.

“I think that some changes needed to be made, and whether those were the ones that needed to be made will be shown in years to come,” Sanders said.

Mike Hannegan, 16, a junior at Foothill, said Ryan was generally liked by students.

“I felt like they were doing a good job,” he said of the administrators.

Other administrative changes announced last week by the board were made primarily at the request of employees, Andrews said.

Pete Brower, principal of Benjamin Beswick Elementary, will replace Claude Wiseman, assistant principal at Tustin High, when Wiseman retires at the end of the school year. Bill Wingo, principal of A.G. Currie Middle School, will replace Brower. Dan Brooks, principal of W.R. Nelson Elementary, will replace Wingo.