HUNTINGTON BEACH : Schools Chief Quits; Successor Chosen

In a surprise move, Lawrence Kemper announced Friday that he is resigning as superintendent of the Huntington Beach Union High School District.

Kemper, who has held the district’s top administrative post since 1987, is leaving Aug. 1 to become superintendent of the Baldwin Park Unified School District in Los Angeles County.

The Board of Trustees has appointed David Hagen, now the assistant superintendent for business services, to succeed him. District officials have not yet released terms of Hagen’s new contract. Kemper earned an annual salary of $108,000.

Board President Charmayne Bohman said Friday that during a closed meeting July 9, the trustees tentatively agreed to promote Hagen assuming Kemper accepted the Baldwin Park position. As part of the board’s decision, which was unanimous it also agreed not to make the announcement until Kemper formally stepped down, Bohman said.

Kemper, now 55, was superintendent of the Huntington Beach City School District from 1979 through 1986. He has spent most of the last 12 years overseeing districts troubled by falling enrollment. Both districts saw declines in state funding during the times he was leading them, so his chief challenge through most of that period was to pare spending yet maintain strong education programs.

During his tenure with the high school district, he and the trustees slashed about $10 million from the budget. The cuts included laying off 39 employees and eliminating a teen pregnancy program earlier this year.

His budget-tightening experiences of the past decade were a large factor in his search for “new challenges” in his career, Kemper said during an interview Friday. At Baldwin Park, Kemper will oversee a growing district of 19 schools with an ethnically diverse student population of 17,000.

“There is a chance to build something there,” he said, “and to have something that says you have tangibly accomplished something. It’s more difficult to cut back, and there aren’t many satisfactions from it. Most of us came into the education business to build. And it’s time for a new perspective.”

Kemper insisted, however, that he had not become frustrated in his high school district job.

In addition, Kemper said, his new job will be a realization of his career goal to head a unified school district.

Still, Kemper said, he had not seriously considered leaving the Huntington Beach district until last month, when Baldwin Park officials asked whether he would be interested in the superintendent job there.

Although the Huntington Beach board did avoid a long and costly nationwide search for a successor, Hagen’s appointment “was not out of convenience,” Bohman said. When trustees hired Kemper four years ago, Hagen “was a very strong runner-up for the job,” she said.

Hagen, 46, joined the district in 1969 as principal of Fountain Valley High School. He has been an administrator in the district offices since 1974, serving as director of personnel before assuming his current post.