ELECTIONS : Challengers Target School Unrest in Board Race : Centinela Valley: The two incumbents counter that the district has no racial tension and that the administrators who caused earlier problems are gone.

Two years ago, long-simmering racial tensions in the Centinela Valley Union High School District reached the boiling point when voters unexpectedly ousted three incumbent board members who supported a controversial black superintendent.

Since then, the predominantly Latino school board has been shaken by student walkouts, stormy board meetings and more than a dozen formal complaints, filed by current and former employees, alleging the district discriminates against blacks.

Now, voters on Tuesday will have a chance to either hold the school board accountable for the last two years of turmoil or give it a vote of confidence for its struggle to turn the district around.

Veteran board members Michael Escalante and Ruth Morales say they have taken steps to rescue the district and need more time to finish the job. But challengers Virginia Rhodes--who was defeated by Escalante four years ago--and Debra Wong both blame the incumbents for the district’s tumult.

Although the district’s racial unrest has become the most explosive issue in the campaign, the incumbents and their challengers are divided even in the way they frame the debate.

When questions about race relations were raised at a candidate’s forum last week, Escalante and Morales flatly denied the district is plagued by racial tensions.

Instead, they said the district’s problems were created by former administrators who were transferred or fired on the basis of their performance. The fact that many of them are black had nothing to do with the shake-up, the incumbents insisted. It was only since the last election, they added, that the trustees finally had enough votes to correct years of mismanagement by replacing those administrators with new ones.

“I believe if you were to visit the school, (you would see) the students are getting along,” Morales told an audience of 60 voters at a school cafeteria in Hawthorne. “There are those people who would make every incident a racial issue. . . . But the things that happen in our schools happen at all schools.”

The challengers countered that the district’s two high schools are rife with racial tensions and that the incumbents only make the situation worse by refusing to deal with it. They also said the trustees’ solution for the district’s problems perpetuated the hostilities.

“I personally don’t feel the board has done anything to relieve the tensions,” Rhodes said. “They have not taken the time to address parents with their grievances. Instead, they close the (board) meeting and the parents go away frustrated.”

Rhodes, who is the only Anglo candidate, is competing against Escalante for a seat in the third district, which includes the south end of Hawthorne, the north end of Lawndale and an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County. Morales and Wong are vying for a seat in the fourth district, which includes most of Hawthorne and the Los Angeles County community of Del Aire. The top vote-getter in both races wins.

In their campaign literature, Escalante, who is running for his third four-year term, and Morales, who is running for her fourth, both tout their experience, leadership abilities and longstanding roots in the community. They are both endorsed by the Centinela Valley Secondary Teachers Assn. and the California Teachers Assn.

They say the selection of a new superintendent is high on their agenda and that they are “taking care of (the district’s problems) by making changes.”

“We removed some principals. We removed some administrators. We’re trying to regroup the whole thing so we don’t have this problem,” Escalante said. “We’re (now) looking to hire a superintendent who will guide the district . . . one that will be conscious of the racial, cultural mix that we have and be sensitive.”

He has raised more than $3,000 in campaign contributions, including a $500 donation from the California Teachers Assn.

Morales’ campaign contributions remain unclear because the county registrar-recorder’s office has not received copies of her financial disclosure statements for either the first filing deadline on Sept. 26 or the second deadline on Oct. 24, registrar-recorder spokeswoman Stella Matthews said. Depending on the amount of money she has raised or spent, Morales could already owe more than $300 in penalties.

Morales has attributed her filing delay to a family illness and said last week that she planned to send the forms on Oct. 25. As of Thursday, however, the county had not received copies of her disclosure statements.

The campaign mottoes of challengers Rhodes and Wong are “Get Serious About Education” and “Our Children Are Not Getting the Education You’re Paying For.” They say they would bring new openness to board meetings--and calm racial tensions--by immediately responding to the questions or concerns raised by parents and community members.

Wong, who is black, said she would bring much-needed “racial balance” to the school board, which has four Latinos and one Anglo. “I think everyone should be represented,” Wong said. “My election would represent the black population in Lawndale and Hawthorne.”

The challengers are endorsed by former school board members, a local group of activists called the Committee for Racial Free Education, and U.S. Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Los Angeles). Wong and Rhodes each have collected more than $2,000 in donations.

Despite differences in how they perceive the district’s problems, the trustees and their opponents all agree the school board has been under fire ever since the last election, when three incumbents who supported former Supt. McKinley Nash were ousted by three newcomers who were critical of him.

Just a few months after the new trustees were seated, 2,500 students staged two walkouts, ostensibly to protest the board’s treatment of a black principal at Hawthorne High School. Although board critics maintain the walkouts were an expression of student frustration, a district-hired investigator has concluded they were orchestrated by Nash and other district employees in an attempt to undermine the new school board.

The board soon moved forward with plans to replace Nash and others in his administration. But the shake-up, which eventually resulted in the firing or reassignment of several black administrators, prompted allegations that the mostly Latino school board was trying to get rid of the district’s black employees.

The district has not been the same ever since.

In the last year, the school board has spent more than $500,000 defending itself against 13 discrimination claims filed with state and federal agencies. Among those who have filed claims are Nash and former Hawthorne High Principal Kenneth Crowe. One of the claims has been settled, and two of them have been dropped by former employees who are now pursuing their grievances in federal court.

The turmoil has played itself out in board meetings and on the campuses. Board meetings have been typically unruly affairs, and have often recessed early. And twice this year, black students faced off against Latino students in melees at both campuses.

But Rhodes and Wong, who supported Nash, said the trustees are using the former administrators as scapegoats for the district’s problems.

“Ruth Morales and Michael Escalante have seen the district go down and haven’t done anything about it,” Wong said. “To just blame a few people isn’t right. They have sat there (on the board) for years doing nothing. If anyone is to blame, it’s the board.”

On an “accountability report card” displayed on one of their flyers, the challengers give the trustees failing marks for everything from campus security and racial unrest to low cash reserves and high legal expenses.

They criticize the board for eliminating several job training programs launched under Nash’s administration. And they favor reopening Lawndale High School, which is currently an adult school and the district’s headquarters, to reduce class sizes at Leuzinger and Hawthorne high schools.

They also said the board may have been able to prevent discrimination claims against the district if the trustees had been more sensitive to the complaints of its black employees.

“We have not had an open line of communication,” Rhodes said. “I think if we had one, a lot of these things could have been avoided.”

But the incumbents say they have been as open as possible with the community and that the district’s problems have decreased as a result of changes in the administration.

“We have rebuilt (the community’s trust), our schools are more secure, our math curriculum is improved and the multicultural education we had has been continued,” Morales said.

The incumbents denounce the idea of reopening Lawndale High School as unnecessary and costly. They agree with their opponents that the district’s legal bills are too high, but say they are obliged to defend themselves against the charges.

“It would cost the district too much to settle,” Escalante said. “It would bankrupt the district.”

They also defend the board’s decision to eliminate the job training programs, saying Nash had misled them about how much outside funding was available to support the programs. “The money wasn’t there,” Escalante said. “What (administrators) promised was never kept.”

Centinela Valley Union High School District Candidates Two challengers are facing two incumbents for school board seats in the Centinela district. 3RD TRUSTEE AREA

Michael Escalante

(incumbent)

Age: 69

Retired businessman

“I’m interested in trying to finish (serving) the community the best I can. I have a record of serving this community for 35 years out of the 44 years I’ve lived here. I owe the community to do this service. The people asked me to run eight years ago. The people have requested I run again.”

Virginia Rhodes

(challenger)

Age: 56

Office manager

“We definitely have racial problems in this district. The thing is, how do you solve those problems? You solve them by getting the business community, the City Council, the parents, the churches, the students and service organizations involved in this. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”

4TH TRUSTEE AREA

Ruth Morales

(incumbent)

Age: 67

Minister

“I’m a sensitive person to the concerns of the community as well as to the teaching staff. My goal is to create a positive learning environment. . . . We need to bring together and put aside our difference and egos and go through the process of healing those wounds caused by the harassment, insults . . . derogatory remarks and lies over the last two years.”

Debra Wong

(challenger)

Age: 36

Telemarketing representative

“There’s not enough social activities for the kids. . . . Teen-agers at that stage in their lives have a lot of energy and if we don’t channel it in a positive way, it will manifest itself in gangs and everything else. If we don’t address the issues and concerns in the community, we’re going to have to deal with the results on the streets.”

Centinela High School District The Centinela Valley Union High School District is divided into five trustee areas, but only Areas 3 and 4 are up for grabs in Tuesday’s election. Candidates are elected at-large, but they must live in the trustee area they represent.