Teachers Seek Review of Policy on Transfer Students : Torrance: Union’s letter to the school board suggests that outside students may be causing disciplinary problems.

Suggesting that discipline and vandalism in Torrance schools may be linked to students who live out of the district, the teacher’s union is calling for a review of the policy that allows those students to enroll in district schools.

The teachers acknowledge they have no proof that “permit students” who live outside the district are responsible for campus problems, but they have written to the school board to express concern over the impact of enrolling those students.

“While these incidents may be random, isolated cases, the teachers believe that an overall change of climate is occurring (particularly at our high schools) as a result of the large influx of permit students,” the letter said.

School officials say they are compiling figures on the number of permit students attending district schools this year, and do not have an estimate of how many there were in previous years. The kindergarten-through-12th-grade district has an enrollment of 20,000.

Los Angeles Unified School District’s figures do not show a flood of its students rushing to Torrance schools in the late 1980s. A total of 455 students from the Los Angeles district obtained permits to attend Torrance schools in 1987-88. That rose to 507 students in 1988-89, but fell to 487 students a year later. More recent figures were not available.

Torrance district officials reacted cautiously to the letter, saying that any change in tone in Torrance classrooms should not be blamed on “outside” students.

“If you look at our society, we have a changing climate,” Assistant Supt. Carol Riley said.

Added school board member John Eubanks, “I think worrying it’s coming from kids on permit is a little bit premature.”

District Supt. Edward J. Richardson and the principals of Torrance, North and West high schools did not return telephone calls seeking comments on the letter.

The discussion seems to touch on longstanding fears in Torrance that urban ills will overtake this largely white, middle-class suburb. However, teachers interviewed about permit students said the source of the problem is not racial changes in the district, which was about 60% Anglo, 27% Asian, 10% Latino and 2% black in the 1989-90 school year.

Torrance High School teacher Robert Maxwell said he believes the problem is that permit students are not as well-prepared academically.

“In study habits and in demeanor and in doing of work, the way they’re approaching the whole business, they’re just different than the Torrance High School students I’m used to,” said Maxwell, who teaches English. “They lack skills, they’re tougher to teach, they’ve come from places (where they) haven’t been put through the paces.”

“It’s a general feeling that . . . there’s been a change in what’s going on in our schools,” said Robert C. Little, a Torrance High drafting teacher and teachers’ association president.

Some teachers said they suspect a growing number of parents in the Los Angeles Unified School District, fearing gang violence or disliking the district’s new year-round calendar that began last summer, may be sending their children to Torrance.

Several teachers said they are convinced more permit students are attending Torrance this fall. “There is a dramatic increase this year. That’s why the teachers started complaining,” Little said.

The most common reason given by those seeking permits to leave L.A. Unified is that the parents have child care in Torrance, said David Bice, counselor for interdistrict permits at L.A. Unified.

Bice said permits are issued for specific reasons such as child care and not because a student wants to attend school in another district. Permission of both districts is required.

Told of the Torrance teachers’ concerns, Bice countered that the permit students actually bolster Torrance’s average daily attendance figures--and thus its state aid.

“It is (average daily attendance), and it is teacher jobs, and, if they don’t want those kids, they don’t have to have them,” Bice said.

“The kids who are here on permit are not the ones who are causing problems in our schools,” said Paul Sittel, Torrance district supervisor of child welfare and attendance.

And officials pointed out that students can lose their permits if they cause disciplinary problems.

Yet some teachers are worried that students from outside the district might carry gang ties into Torrance, though officials say that Torrance already has a gang problem.

“People traditionally have not wanted to see a gang activity in Torrance. There is one. Some of it may be imported. Some of it is home-grown,” school board President David Sargent said.

And Sgt. Scott Margolin, Torrance police gang unit supervisor, said he once thought permit students might be linked to Torrance gang problems--but that he has since changed his mind.

“I don’t think we’re importing a problem so far,” Margolin said.

The teachers’ concerns have surfaced during a turbulent autumn at some Torrance schools.

Anza Elementary School parents became alarmed last month when an intruder accosted a young girl in a school restroom. The girl screamed and escaped physical harm.

In mid-September, two rival gangs confronted one another near Torrance High School. Torrance police investigating the incident said the gangs came from the Harbor Gateway area and Lomita.

Police said their investigation uncovered several students attending Torrance High illegally because they had falsely claimed Torrance addresses.

Teachers also say they believe vandalism has worsened. And an administration report to the school board this week showed $28,510 in equipment was stolen or destroyed in the school year’s first quarter, compared to $11,061 in the same period last year. Much of that amount was due to the theft of expensive photocopying equipment, Sargent said.

The school board will hold a special workshop Dec. 9 to discuss the permit issue. Sargent said the board will need more information before it can decide if the union’s concerns are valid.

“There’s a lot of perception there. That’s why I’m going to reserve any judgment until I have facts,” Sargent said Friday.