Clinton Trillingham; Former L.A. County Schools Chief

Clinton C. Trillingham, who for 25 years as Los Angeles County schools superintendent coordinated and serviced the 95 districts that composed his sprawling territory, has died.

His daughter, Doris Miller, said Wednesday that her father, who was superintendent from 1942 until his retirement in 1967, was 92 when he died Aug. 20 in an Arcadia hospital.

When Trillingham became superintendent after eight years as assistant, there were 300,000 children in the county’s schools. When he retired there were 1.8 million.

Then, as now, the primary concern was financing and he complained on the eve of his retirement that “the state hasn’t kept up its support” of the schools, pushing the burden onto property owners and local taxing agencies.

The county schools office acts as a coordinator and intermediate between the state Department of Education and local districts. It provides business and payroll services to smaller districts and helps upgrade educational programs.

Trillingham was born in Indiana and was raised in Kansas, where he graduated from Southwestern College and taught in Kansas schools before coming to California in 1930.

He received his master’s and doctoral degrees from USC and became the first president of Educare, a USC educational support group. In 1958 he was chosen president of the American Assn. of School Administrators and was one of the first U.S. educators to visit the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s.

He is survived by his daughter and two grandchildren. Contributions to a scholarship fund in his name may be made through the USC School of Education, WPH 1103, Los Angeles 90089.