Principal of Skills Center Is Removed : Education: The dismissal, recommended by a federal mediator, culminates months of battles between Paul Davis and teachers at the vocational school.

The principal of the Venice Skills Center was removed from his post this week after a federal mediator concluded there was no peaceful way to end the administrator’s feud with some teachers and students.

The administrator, Paul Davis, said he felt vindicated because he will keep his parallel duties of principal of the Venice-Hamilton Community Adult School, which is six times larger than the 300-student job skills center.

“I agreed to go, based on the knowledge that the rock-throwing would continue,” Davis said Tuesday. He continued to defend the changes he had made in class offerings and other operations at the vocational center that prompted a months-long effort by some teachers and students there to oust him.

The decision to remove Davis was announced to staffers during a campus meeting Monday by James Figueroa, who heads the adult education division of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The vocational center will be headed by Val Bush, formerly an assistant principal at the Westchester-Washington Community Adult School.

In a related move, the Venice center’s assistant principal, Eva Green, was transferred to the University-Palisades Community Adult School.

Figueroa aide Trusse Norris compared the wholesale leadership changes to hiring new coaches for a losing sports team. “You change the coaches and start off anew,” he said.

Davis’s reassignment culminated a tug-of-war over control of the 25-year-old school. Teachers had loudly complained that since taking over in August, Davis bulldozed over them in management decisions ranging from canceling a VCR-repair class to making classroom telephones unusable for outside calls. Critics went to meetings of the Los Angeles Board of Education to call for Davis’ removal.

Davis maintained that he was merely trying to breathe new life into a faltering program by trimming sparsely attended classes and shifting some other classes elsewhere in Venice. He claimed to be the target of a coup by a handful of teachers who opposed campus changes.

The fight escalated. Students split on the matter. Some activists from the Oakwood neighborhood said Davis ignored the poor community, while others said he was being unfairly criticized because he is black. After Davis turned down a transfer to another school, district officials last month called in a federal mediator to see if the dispute could be settled peacefully.

The answer was no.

“I felt that they had personalized a broader issue,” said mediator Stephen Thom, who interviewed about 90 employees, students and neighbors of the school. “Once people’s feelings and personalities got involved, it seemed to lose the crux of improving eduction on-site.”

Norris said the decision to remove Davis was based “to a great extent” on the mediator’s pessimistic conclusion.

“We thought we could make it work. But the personality mix just didn’t work,” Norris said.

Davis’ foes on the faculty were cheered by his removal.

“It’s over now. Let’s move on to the next thing we have to do. This has been awful,” said Michael Hill, who runs a special program on campus for dropouts and young people sent there by the courts.

But the principal’s supporters said district administrators had failed to give Davis the support he deserved.

“I think the district just doesn’t have any backbone when it comes dealing with teachers at this site. They just capitulate,” said reading teacher Susan Scheding.

Davis declined to criticize his superiors directly. But he said the incident had shown that “a handful of people can create such chaos that they can force good people trying to fulfill their duty--that they can chase them away.”

Bush will hold the title of assistant principal and answer to occupational-education officials at district headquarters. He is urging staffers to put aside the school’s recent turmoil and said he also plans to reach out to the neighborhood to get more students from Oakwood.

“The best advice I got was to come in with an open mind,” Bush said Tuesday, his second day on the job. “I don’t want to hear rumors, innuendo and gossip. I don’t want to look back.”