Leuzinger Principal Ousted, Plans Legal Fight

Leuzinger High School Principal Sonja Davis has been reassigned to head the adult education school in the racially divided Centinela Valley Union High School District, making her the third top-ranking black administrator to be transferred or fired in slightly more than a year.

Davis said she plans to fight the move as an illegal demotion, even though she would receive the same pay in her new position.

“It is a demotion,” Davis said. “Upon the advice of legal counsel, I have written the superintendent challenging my transfer/demotion based upon Education Code provisions and case law.”

District officials refused to discuss the matter. “I have no comment,” Supt. Tom Barkelew said Friday. “It’s a personnel matter.”

Davis’ transfer to the Centinela Valley Adult School is to take effect Aug. 19 when she returns from a vacation.

The district’s predominantly Latino school board has come under fire since last summer for the transfer or firing of two other black administrators. Former Supt. McKinley Nash was fired in July, 1990. That same month, former Hawthorne High School Principal Kenneth Crowe was demoted to a teaching position. He later resigned to become principal of Inglewood High School.

Crowe and Nash, along with 11 other black employees, have filed discrimination complaints against the school board with state and federal agencies. Four complaints have been settled or dismissed, and nine others are still under review.

Davis joined the district as a teacher in 1972. She was named Leuzinger’s interim principal in 1988, and one year later Nash promoted her to principal.

The racial unrest that has marked the district in the past few years frequently touched Leuzinger under her tenure, and once prompted her to spend five weeks on a doctor-ordered disability leave.

In March, 1990, about 2,000 Luezinger students marched to nearby Hawthorne High. At the time of the demonstration, students said they organized the walkout as a protest against the district’s alleged discrimination against blacks. A district-hired investigator, however, has concluded that the demonstration was organized by black employees.

In April, 1991, a fight between two girls erupted into a large-scale race riot that pitted dozens of black students against Latino students.

Davis’ transfer evoked mixed reactions from teachers Friday.

Leuzinger art teacher Sandra Goins denounced the move as one more example of the district’s discriminatory practices. “My reaction is I’m not surprised at all, and I’d even bet she would be replaced by somebody who helped get rid of all the other administrators that are minorities,” Goins said.

But one teacher said the school had suffered from a lack of leadership under Davis’ administration.

“She was very well thought of, very well liked as a human being, but I don’t think (she was liked) as a leader,” said Leuzinger teacher Nancy Nuesseler, a representative for the teachers’ union. “My sense of it was that she was a survivor . . . (but that) she wasn’t out front trying to bring about change.”