Montclair Prep Targeting Flaws Within School : Investigation: Record-keeping for athletes said to have improved as Southern Section hearing nears.

Although proceedings have not yet begun in the case against Montclair Prep, school officials say they already have taken steps to remedy problems within the athletic department.

The Southern Section’s executive committee will hear charges Tuesday and Wednesday at Valley Christian High in Cerritos that Montclair Prep tampered with grades and allowed football players to avoid paying tuition. The hearing also will address charges that Montclair Prep staged a phony living arrangement to gain athletic eligibility for four football players five years ago and illegally recruited football players Derek and Leland Sparks in 1989.

The investigation stemmed from the transfer of the Sparks cousins, seniors who left Montclair Prep in September for Santa Ana Mater Dei. At a hearing in September, Jerome Sparks, an uncle of the Sparks cousins, claimed that Montclair Prep did not charge tuition for his nephews and that the school changed their grades.

Montclair Prep faces severe penalties, including expulsion from the section, if found guilty of the charges, but Principal V. E. Simpson said he is looking forward to the hearing, claiming the school he founded in 1956 will be cleared.

“They spent so much time trying to prove allegations by (Jerome) Sparks that they haven’t looked at the truth,” Simpson said. “They’ve taken very little things, things we’ve done as kindnesses, and tried to make it look as though we bribed, lured or enticed the Sparkses to go to Montclair Prep. That’s just not true.”

Simpson, however, admitted that the school has been negligent in checking eligibility requirements of students who transfer to the school.

“If we are guilty of anything, then we didn’t check eligibility close enough,” Simpson said. “It’s a very difficult job to check those things out and maybe we could have done a better job.”

The school already has addressed that problem, according to Athletic Director Greg Reece. Simpson has cleared Reece from all but one teaching assignment to concentrate on his duties as athletic director. Reece said he has worked at improving the school’s procedure for keeping athletes’ academic records, which were virtually nonexistent when he assumed the job in 1989.

“There were hardly any records kept by previous athletic directors and we’ve cleared that up,” he said. “There were no files at all when I came here and now we have six drawers full.”

Reece is relieved that the hearing has finally arrived. Student-athletes have expressed concern over the school’s future and requests for transcripts from students are up, Reece said. “If I was a parent, and the school wasn’t going to have any sports next year, my kids would probably transfer too,” he said.

Montclair Prep teams have heard their share of taunts about the investigation.

“It’s always on your mind when you visit another school,” Reece said. “We feel like we’ve got a mark on us and we haven’t been convicted of anything. When I schedule other schools for next year, sometimes they say, ‘Are you sure you’re going to have a program?’ Some people have been a little snide, but some have been supportive too.”