Latinos Allege Bias at Pacoima Adult School : Discrimination: After a rally in her favor, the principal they accuse was reinstated. She has denied charges of prejudice.

Members of several San Fernando Valley Latino groups, including the Mexican-American Political Assn., said Wednesday that they will ask federal, state and local officials to investigate what they called discrimination against Latinos at a Pacoima adult school.

“We have some very serious allegations,” said spokeswoman Irene Tovar, a longtime Pacoima activist and an adviser on Latino issues to East Valley school board member Roberta Weintraub.

Tovar charged that students who speak only limited English were not allowed to enroll in classes, including typing and carpentry; that Latino teachers are discriminated against in hiring and promotions, and that low-enrollment classes taught by Anglo teachers have been retained in the curriculum, whereas the hours of Latino teachers have been reduced.

“Bilingual teachers are even forbidden to speak Spanish among themselves,” Tovar said.

Latino teachers also alleged that Anglo teachers and counselors frequently make racial slurs against Latino students.

The accusations followed a rally by rival teachers and students at the Pacoima Skills Center two weeks ago against the announced transfer of Principal Maureen Jensen. The organizers of that rally said Jensen was being transferred in response to false complaints that she was biased against Latinos.

Jensen was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

James Figueroa, a Los Angeles Unified School District assistant superintendent, said the district will immediately investigate Wednesday’s allegations “once we see something in writing. We don’t tolerate that sort of thing.”

Harlan Barbanell, who oversees the adult schools as director of vocational education, said Joel Benavides, a community relations officer with the U.S. Department of Justice, has been called in to look into minority allegations of problems at the skills center.

Barbanell, Jensen’s immediate superior, said Wednesday that Jensen has a good record in her 12 years as principal of the Pacoima school.

He said various allegations were brought to him by Latinos several months ago. “I looked into these with the principal and all were resolved,” he said.

He said Jensen is on a vacation to Ohio that was planned several months ago and is not trying to evade the allegations.

At Wednesday’s news conference in Panorama City, Tovar, counselors and teachers alleged that Jensen favors Anglo teachers over Latinos in hiring and promotions.

“I was told I spoke too much Spanish in the classroom,” teacher Jeanne Fields said.

“I have a student who three days ago was denied enrollment in my typing class because she doesn’t know enough English,” she added. “And I’m bilingual.”

Counselor Florence Flores said racial slurs about students are often made in her presence.

“We would want to investigate all of those things,” said Figueroa, who oversees the district’s adult and occupational schools. “But we need to see the specifics.”

Tovar said details of specific incidents will be sent to the district later this week.

Manuel Ponce, director of the district’s Mexican-American Education Commission, a participant in the news conference, said he supports an investigation by officials from outside the district.

Ponce said he first heard complaints from students at the Pacoima school in March. He said he believed the matter was settled later that month following a meeting with Jensen, one of her superiors and several students.

Following the meeting, the commission received no more complaints from students, Ponce said.

Tovar said she became involved about nine months ago and began to investigate the allegations at that time. She said the allegations had not been brought to the district until now because time was needed to document the charges and because of fear on the part of students and teachers involved.

“People were afraid to step forward,” she said.

“I had a fear of losing my job,” Flores said. “I had brought issues up to the principal before.”

“We had to do a lot of convincing to get students and teachers to sign affidavits,” said Tovar, a onetime City Council candidate. “For every allegation, we had to put documentation in writing. We had to get affidavits signed by students and teachers. All that took a lot of time.”

Tovar said the allegations, affidavits signed by students and teachers and other documentation will be sent to the federal Department of Labor, state Department of Education and the Los Angeles city Jobs Training Partnership, as well as the school district.

The Latinos’ allegations came in the wake of the district’s reinstatement of Jensen as principal.

Jensen was to have been transferred July 1 to Reseda Adult School amid allegations by Tovar and others that she was insensitive to the needs of Latino students. But the transfer was rescinded after about 75 students and teachers held a rally protesting the reassignment.

At the rally, teacher Jeff Gould said Jensen had been unfairly accused. “It’s easy to rile up a community when you mislead them,” he said.

“I have been accused of being discriminatory against Hispanics, which is false,” Jensen said at the time.

Tovar and leaders of seven organizations said Wednesday they would ask the school district to discipline Jensen because they claimed she organized the June 27 rally during school hours and pressured students to participate.

Jensen earlier accused Tovar of persuading residents to pressure the school district to hire a Latino to replace her, a move Jensen described as reverse discrimination.

Also participating in Wednesday’s event were representatives of the San Fernando Valley Chicano Roundtable, the Santa Rosa Immigration Service, the San Fernando Chapter of Mexican-American Educators, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Mercer Homeowners Assn. of Pacoima.

Tovar said the groups are united in an umbrella organization called the Pacoima Skills Center Community Issues Task Force.

Times staff writer Sam Enriquez contributed to this story.