Parents, Teachers United by Shooting : Gangs: They demand that elementary school be protected from the violence at the nearby Mar Vista Gardens Housing project.

It took a bullet hole through a pre-kindergarten classroom window and 4-year-olds pressed to the floor during gang gunfire to galvanize parents and teachers at Stoner Avenue Elementary School.

The school, located between Culver City and Marina del Rey, hasn’t even had a PTA for 15 years, but last week more than 100 people turned out for an angry and emotional meeting with school district officials. They threatened to withdraw their children unless the school is protected from the violence of the neighboring Mar Vista Gardens housing project.

On the morning of Aug. 27, the victim of a drive-by gang shooting across the street from the school rushed through an open gate and pushed his way past parents who were picking up children from a pre-kindergarten program.

Bleeding heavily, the man sought refuge in the class restroom, as horrified parents and children watched. His teen-aged pursuers fired weapons into the classroom, then drove around the school grounds searching for him. They peppered a parent’s van with bullets, and barely missed a 4-year-old boy getting into the vehicle and several other children inside the classroom who, a moment before, had been engrossed in a new hermit crab.

Classroom aide Liz Avalos said she locked the classroom door and hit the buzzer to the main office, while teacher Annette Marks confronted the man in the bathroom and told him he must leave. Principal Ada Garza arrived, asked him if he had a gun, and when he answered, “no,” ordered him to “Come with me.”

The man was taken to the nurse’s office and later was picked up by paramedics. He was treated and released at a nearby hospital; no suspects have been arrested.

No one else was hurt, but the incident was a reminder that neighborhood violence can spill onto the school grounds. It has united blacks and Latinos, teachers and parents, as never before.

“I’m pleased to see the community enraged,” said kindergarten teacher Pat Tobias. “Our parents are usually quiet; they don’t make waves. So something positive has come out of this.”

The 800-student school is 76% Latino, 10% black and nearly 10% Asian. Many of the children live in the housing project across the street, where rival Westside gangs are involved in an escalating war. “We’re sick of this, and we’re not going to put up with it anymore,” said David Elias, a parent who witnessed the shooting and ensuing chaos.

“We want better security and a safe place,” he told district officials. “Unfortunately, these drive-by shootings are a way of life. But this incident a couple of weeks ago, it was just too close--I almost lost my 4-year-old son.

“Either you protect our children or we’ll yank them out of school.”

Parents and teachers said the school needs a fence, a public address system, peepholes in the doors and a visible police presence--most of which the school district says it cannot afford.

The audience booed Eugene McAdoo, district superintendent for elementary schools on the Westside, accusing him of hypocrisy, indifference and a patronizing attitude.

McAdoo said the district had given the school two walkie-talkies and would provide $1,900 for security grills for two rooms. Peepholes for all classroom doors, at $885, may also be possible, he said. But a public address system to allow communication between various rooms and areas, estimated at $45,000, and a fence along the front and side of the school, estimated at $17,000, are too costly, he told the group.

“Are you telling us that except for peepholes and walkie-talkies, there is nothing the school district can do?” shouted one parent.

“What are we going to do at the next drive-by shooting?” asked another, after being told that officials consider an intercom system too expensive. “Send a smoke signal?”

A third parent asked whether it would take a tragedy to get action. “I do not want a PA system or fence in memory of a child who attended this school, or a teacher,” he said softly.

But the group--many of whom had taken the morning off from work to attend or brought their babies and toddlers with them from home--appeared to welcome pledges of help from school board member Mark Slavkin--who surprised and pleased the predominantly Latino audience by answering questions in Spanish.

“In spite of the cost and obstacles, we must work together to make sure these things get done,” he told them. “Some things the school district can do; some must come from the community (perhaps through donations from area businesses). But this school must be made safe from violence for your children.

“You need to take the anger and frustration you are feeling and put it to good use,” he said, promising that although “we can’t do everything this second, I will stay with you and make sure these things happen.”

He proposed that he meet further with a small committee of parents to develop a plan of action.

A few parents walked out in disgust, but most stayed till the end of the two-hour meeting to press for improved security.

Some said they will not place their children in a setting where they are “sitting ducks.” Many said they found the district’s response unacceptable. “I don’t want a whole bunch of rhetoric,” said one mother. “I want you all to move.”

Parents and teachers in the newly formed Security Committee of Stoner Avenue met Wednesday for the first time. Principal Garza said they will set a realistic timetable, draw up a list of what is needed to make Stoner safer, and determine where to seek each item--from the school district, the community or local police.

Meanwhile Garza prepared for a possible repeat of last month’s violence with a review of appropriate procedures and a security drill that nowadays appears as important as earthquake drills in many parts of Los Angeles.

She met with Pacific Division police, who in turn will meet with groups of teachers and parents later this month. She also scheduled meetings with school district police and with representatives of the Police Department’s pilot gang intervention program, called Jeopardy. Detective Cindy Harkness, who is investigating the shooting, said the community “should yell for more Housing Authority police. That’s the school’s whole problem--what is across the street (Mar Vista Gardens).” She said the lone car that patrols the public housing project’s perimeter is inadequate.

As for the children involved in the incident, they escaped physical, but not psychological, injury. Parents and teachers say the youngsters are tearful and jumpy, especially at the sound of sirens.

“When I walked into the classroom,” said one mother, “my daughter was under the desk, crying.”

“My little boy is crying at night, he don’t want to go to school anymore,” said a father.

A teacher said that when she walked over to close the classroom door the other day, she saw apprehension on tiny faces.

“Are they (the gunmen and their victim) coming back?” the children wanted to know.