ELECTIONS INGLEWOOD SCHOOL BOARD : Candidates Shed More Heat Than Light in Bitter Runoff

The Parents’ Voice versus the Puppet?

Or is it the Showboat versus the Consensus-Builder?

The two candidates competing in Inglewood’s school board runoff offer drastically different descriptions of their Tuesday showdown.

But maybe that’s to be expected in a race as combative as this one, which pits Inglewood Unified School District Trustee Zyra McCloud against challenger Loystene Irvin.

McCloud, a former parent activist elected to the board in 1987, portrays herself as the panel’s lone voice for parents. Irvin, she charges, would do the bidding of Inglewood’s political power brokers.

“I will not let the political machine take away the gains we have won,” she said of her race with Irvin, who is backed by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), U.S. Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton) and all four of McCloud’s school board colleagues. “I’m not a puppet. I cannot be used by them.”

Irvin, a lay Pentecostal minister who failed in a run for the board in 1987, says her endorsements prove that officials feel she can help build consensus and improve the district’s schools. She charges that as a school board member, McCloud has been long on disruptive, attention-getting rhetoric and short on accomplishments.

“When Mrs. McCloud doesn’t have things her way, she acts like a spoiled child,” Irvin said this week. “This is someone who is out for herself.”

The fiery campaigning comes as no surprise. McCloud is not known for pulling her punches. And Irvin, a lower-key but determined campaigner, clearly had McCloud on the ropes in the April 2 school board election.

In the three-way race for the board’s District 5, Irvin led the field with 1,469 votes, or 47.4%, McCloud trailed with 959 (31%), and Sandra Mack, a beauty salon owner, placed third with 669 (21.6%). A runoff between Irvin and McCloud was scheduled because none of the candidates won more than 50% of the vote.

The two-way competition since then has not lacked fireworks, featuring accusations of sign stealing, false endorsements and more. But some Inglewood political observers complain that as a result, there has been a lack of constructive debate about problems facing the school district.

Among those problems are a projected $2.8-million budget shortfall for the 1991-92 school year, gang-related violence on campuses and complaints that the all-black school board is not adequately serving the district’s fast-growing Latino student population.

“In some ways I wish both of these candidates weren’t running,” said United Democratic Club of Inglewood President Terry Coleman, who has endorsed neither candidate in the race. “It’s so bitter, it’s personal, and it’s a shame.”

On many issues, actually, McCloud and Irvin share common ground. Both criticize the district for failing to consult parents before considering proposals to ease crowding by reorganizing the district and putting more schools on year-round schedules. In the face of objections by parents, the proposals have been tabled until next year.

They also recommend tighter campus security to guard against gangs, and say that district austerity measures addressing the budget shortfall must not involve layoffs of teachers or otherwise directly affect classroom instruction.

The candidates also have made policy proposals.

McCloud, for instance, has proposed creating detailed instructional plans for each student involving weekly testing and reports to parents showing how the student is--or is not--meeting the plan’s goals.

“We have too much substitute teaching, and in many cases that means children are in the same lesson in their books for three months,” McCloud said. “This (program) is what the child and the parent can use to monitor progress and hold us accountable.”

Irvin, meanwhile, says that the district should aggressively forge partnership programs with businesses and create a fund-raising foundation to boost the resources available to schools.

“These days we’re talking about a lack of funds for education,” Irvin said. “We need to do everything we can to increase our revenues.”

Such questions, however, come amid a cross-fire of angry charges and countercharges in the school board race.

In an apparent attempt to portray Irvin as a pawn of Inglewood’s political leaders, McCloud, who says that she has strong grass-roots support, has posted campaign signs saying: “Reelect Zyra McCloud. Unbought . . . Unbossed.”

McCloud also accuses Irvin of dirty tricks, including removing her campaign signs, a charge that Irvin denies.

“I have practically no signs in the city because they (Irvin and some of her supporters) made it a point to pull them down,” McCloud said. “People have to know how dirty they are.”

Irvin, meanwhile, accuses McCloud of claiming false endorsements.

In McCloud’s candidate statement that is to appear on the June 4 ballot, she says that she has the endorsement of Mack--who finished third in the April election, Irvin said.

Mack says that she used to be a friend of McCloud but never agreed to endorse her. “It’s kind of like a case of taking advantage of my friendship,” she said Thursday.

McCloud, however, says that Mack agreed to endorse her, but then told her she didn’t want to get involved in the campaigning after the candidate’s statement had been prepared. Clarence Hill, an Inglewood pastor and McCloud supporter, said he also heard Mack agree to endorse the incumbent.

With four days to go before the runoff, such arguments are unlikely to die down. Both candidates say that a victory by the other would damage the district.

“My opponent doesn’t have the skills to do problem-solving,” Irvin said this week. “True leadership is the ability to work with others and move the education agenda forward.”

McCloud responded: “She’ll win this seat over my dead body. . . . If I’m not elected, not only will I lose, but the children will lose and the parents will lose.”

The Candidates Loystene Irvin

District 5 challenger

Age: 44

Occupation: Minister, businesswoman

Zyra McCloud

District 5 incumbent

Age: 43

Occupation: School board member