Oxnard High School Principal Seeks Transfer : Education: Latino groups that have come to Ruperto Cisneros’ defense are upset over his decision. His request follows a Feb. 27 brawl on campus.

The principal of Oxnard High School, where some students and parents say racial tension has festered for years, has asked for a job transfer.

Citing “personal reasons and philosophical differences” with the Oxnard Union High School District administration, Principal Ruperto Cisneros said Thursday that he will leave the job at the end of June.

Cisneros, principal since 1988, declined to give specific reasons for his decision or to comment on whether it was a result of a Feb. 27 brawl involving more than 20 Latino and black students, some wielding pipes and chains. He said he will remain an employee of the school district.

Cisneros said he submitted a letter to the district’s board of trustees requesting reassignment about a month after the fight. The board voted in closed session March 28 to accept the request, Supt. Ian Kirkpatrick said.

After the brawl, a rumor that district officials planned to remove Cisneros resulted in Latino officials coming to his defense. At a March 13 board meeting, they urged trustees and district officials not to blame him for the fight or to punish him by transferring him elsewhere.

Kirkpatrick said Thursday that Cisneros’ decision to leave the principal’s job was not at the request of the board or district officials. “There was no force involved; it was a voluntary thing,” he said.

Some members of El Concilio, an Oxnard-based Latino advocacy group whose members have been among those lobbying on Cisneros’ behalf, expressed surprise Thursday at the principal’s decision.

“I was grieved,” said Margaret Cortese, president of El Concilio’s board of directors. She said Latino students will lose a role model with Cisneros’ transfer to another position.

“It’s very unfortunate that we’re losing such quality administration at Oxnard High School,” said Marcos Vargas, El Concilio’s executive director. “It’s my hope that the district will fill the position with somebody sensitive to Latino issues.”

The 2,278-student school is 57% Latino, 29% white, 6% black, 3% Asian-American, 3% Filipino-American and 2% other minorities.

District officials said they will search among district employees and outside for a replacement.

El Concilio members had been scheduled to speak on Cisneros’ behalf at the board meeting next week. Cortese said the group still plans to ask the board Wednesday to form a task force, which would include members of El Concilio, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Filipino-American Council, to advise the district on school-violence issues.

The Feb. 27 fight started in the school gymnasium, where at least 50 Latino and black students had been assembled during a lunch period because rain prohibited them from eating outside. Several students involved in the fight said a black student and a Latino student with grudges against each other were the first to exchange blows. Other students then joined in the melee, with Latinos fighting blacks.

Police were summoned, and one student was arrested and charged with inciting a riot. Eighteen students were suspended. Of those, eight have been expelled from the district, school officials said.

Two more students are awaiting expulsion hearings later this month, officials said. The remainder have returned to school.

After the fight, some students and black parents maintained that tension had been brewing between Latino and black students at the school for years.

Cisneros has worked for the district for 20 years. He began as a teacher at Rio Mesa High School, where he later served as a counselor, dean of instruction and assistant principal for student services.

Cisneros also worked as assistant principal of educational services at Channel Islands High School. Before becoming principal at Oxnard High, he served in a training position in 1987-88 as principal-designee under then-Principal Steve Stocks, now president of the school board.

District officials said they will meet with Cisneros this summer to discuss where he will work the next school year, Kirkpatrick said.

“We’ll see what develops,” Cisneros said. “I might end up at Oxnard High School in a different capacity.”