Newport-Mesa Schools Get Interim Chief

Stanley Corey, retired longtime superintendent of the Irvine Unified School District, was chosen interim leader of the beleaguered Newport-Mesa Unified School District in a unanimous vote of school trustees Tuesday night.

Also at Tuesday’s session, the board gave preliminary approval to a revised, interim budget that accommodates some of the losses the district suffered in what has proven to be California’s largest school fund embezzlement ever.

Corey, 67, may begin the $474-a-day job as soon as today and will remain in the post until the school board selects a permanent chief, probably by June. John W. Nicoll, Newport-Mesa superintendent since 1971, announced his retirement last month because of failing health.

“I’m going to try to pull things together, build confidence, make sure the schools get good service and (see) that Newport-Mesa keeps chugging right along,” Corey said in a telephone interview Tuesday night.

Officials discovered last fall that Stephen A. Wagner, the district’s top financial officer, had looted district accounts of nearly $4 million, leaving the district financially strapped and outraging parents and teachers, who publicly demanded Nicoll’s ouster. Nicoll has said his decision to step down had nothing to do with Wagner, who has pleaded guilty to grand theft.

In announcing Corey’s appointment at a meeting Tuesday night, school board members said they expect the interim superintendent to conduct a systematic assessment of the district’s schools in order to advise the permament superintendent on the district’s needs.

Corey will not participate in the search process for a permanent superintendent, nor is he expected to make major changes in the running of the district.

“The interim superintendent is not supposed to sweep the district clean of management,” board member Martha Fluor said. “In this point in time, the district is in the hands of Dr. Corey, Dr. Tom Godley and Dr. Carol Berg and the expectation is that it will remain that way.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, acting Board President Roderick H. MacMillian announced that he has received six proposals from executive search firms offering to assist the district in finding a new superintendent. The proposals range in price from $12,000 to $35,000, he said.

MacMillian said that he will request further proposals from search firms around the country and that the board will hear presentations from various companies next week.

Corey, who graduated from Whittier College and earned a master’s degree in educational adminstration from USC, began his career as a sixth-grade teacher and elementary school principal. After a stint as an assistant superintendent in Buena Park and two short terms as superintendent of small school districts, he took the top job in Irvine in 1972. He retired 15 years later.

District officials announced that Wagner’s falsification of the last two years’ school budgets left the system with a shortfall of more than $2.1 million.

Times correspondent Mimi Ko contributed to this story.