Campus Slaying Prompts Criticism of Transfer Policy : Education: Thousands of students each year are given fresh starts at new campuses, but the results of the changes are not recorded. Administrators often use the transfers as punishment.

A longtime practice at Los Angeles city schools of transferring students to help them improve grades and conduct has instead become a way of dumping them onto the streets or onto campuses where they pose a hidden danger to others.

And despite the widespread nature of the practice--in which thousands of students each year are issued so-called opportunity transfers--neither the Los Angeles Unified School District nor individual schools keeps a record of the outcome of such transfers.

Unfortunately, say district educators, the result is often that troublesome youngsters are moved from school to school until they drop out, or, in a growing number of cases, until they commit a serious crime on campus.

“The gall of the district is that if the student doesn’t return to his original school, the transfer is considered a success even though he dropped out or never even showed up at the new school,” said one Los Angeles Unified School District administrator. “There is no systematic way of tracking these students, and there is probably a great deal of interest in keeping it (like) that.”

Although the district’s policy governing such transfers requires that school officials first attempt a two-page list of suggested counseling and class changes to help the student, this is rarely done, say those familiar with the practice.

Instead, most administrators use opportunity transfers as a punishment rather than a cure, and as an easy way of ridding themselves of students who have gotten into trouble.

As a result, students who need the most help are instead given the extra stress of going to a new school, often farther away from home and occasionally in the turf of rivals.

The practice has emerged as a controversial issue after the campus shooting death Monday of 17-year-old Reseda High School student Michael Shean Ensley. He had been transferred to and from Reseda twice from Taft High School in the past two years, once as a disciplinary measure and once for academic reasons.

A 15-year-old Reseda High sophomore, Robert Heard, has been charged with Ensley’s murder and is being held in Sylmar Juvenile Hall. He too apparently had been transferred, from two different junior high schools and once to a special high school for students with discipline problems, before ending up at Reseda.

Worried parents, students and teachers now are questioning the transfer practice.

“The concept is great, but the implementation over the years has not proven to be successful,” said John Liechty, the district’s director of middle schools. “Many schools use it wisely, but that is the exception, not the rule.”

Liechty said he has been guilty of making such transfers while working as an administrator at city schools. He now opposes the practice and likened it to corporal punishment: “It makes you feel great, but it doesn’t work for the kids.”

Liechty has begun this year to try to limit the number of transfers approved by junior high school principals. He said common sense suggests that “if they are having problems at my school, they are going to have problems at the next school.”

Despite that, transferring troubled students has remained an entrenched administrative tool in Los Angeles schools.

About 6,800 opportunity transfers were issued in the 1991-92 school year. The transfers were split evenly between junior high and high school students, records show.

The largest single reason listed was disobedience, which accounted for 31% of the transfers last year. The second most frequent reason was for the protection of students, about 22%.

Although school administrators say many opportunity transfers are a success, no record is required or kept of the number of students who end up dropping out rather than enrolling at a new school.

Therefore the district cannot determine how many opportunity transfer students--unable to face the prospect of having to make new friends or fearful of students from rival neighborhoods--contribute to the district’s nearly 40% dropout rate.

Once a student is handed a transfer notice, the district does not require either school to report whether the student enrolls, and both schools are in practice essentially relieved of responsibility, district officials said.

Many teachers, parents and law-abiding students are more concerned about those who do not drop out but enroll at their new school--especially students transferred because of a history of fighting, possession of weapons, assault and gang-related trouble.

District records show nearly 700 such transfers during the 1991-92 school year but do not list to which school they were sent.

The transfer of student records takes place two to three months after the student has enrolled and has attended classes regularly in the new school, district administrators said.

Francis Nakano, special assistant to Supt. Sid Thompson, conceded that the publicity surrounding the Reseda High shooting has drawn attention to a longstanding problem. He said the district should begin better tracking of opportunity transfer students.

“We need to have a different process to monitor these youngsters,” Nakano said.