Q & A : New Schools Chief to Work to Restore Faith : Q&A;: Cloyde McKinley (Mac) Bernd, who will become superintendent of the troubled Newport-Mesa district, wants to be accessible to the community.

For the first time in 21 years, a new person will sit in the office of the superintendent in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District on Monday. Cloyde McKinley Bernd, 49, who loves to ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles and goes by the nickname Mac, was hired last month from Little Rock, Ark., to lead the embattled district through some tough educational and budgetary issues. The Newport-Mesa school district is still stinging from the largest embezzlement in the history of California schools. And when the school year resumes this fall, most teachers will handle classes that will have about 30 students from many cultures and races. All the while, school districts try to do more educating with less money. Bernd talks with Times correspondent Bob Elston about what it will be like to be superintendent of schools in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa and what changes can be expected during his tenure.

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Question: This is the beginning of a new era for the Newport-Mesa school district. You are the first superintendent to be hired in more than 20 years. Where do you plan to take this district, its faculty, administration and students?

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Answer: This school district has a long record of accomplishments. That is not to say that we have not had some recent problems. . . . What I will spend a lot of time on initially is determining what is really good about this school district and what needs to be improved. You have to keep both those things in mind at once, almost.

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Q: What were your initial impressions of this district when you visited schools for the first time a couple of weeks ago?

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A: One of the things I asked teachers to do when I visited classrooms was to introduce me. And after they introduced me, the kids knew what a superintendent was and knew I was new. The (students) were responsive and helpful. They don’t act like young people that have been oppressed. Initially, I saw a good climate in the schools, responsive kids and people who are proud to work for the district.

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Q: Do you have an idea of what you can do to make yourself accessible to everybody, the students, the teachers, the parents and the administrators?

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A: I am going to be in every school twice before winter break--that is 26 schools. That will keep me busy. We are going to have some community forums set up where people have a chance to come in and talk about the schools. . . . We are going to set up the same kind of occasion for all employees. We see this being culminated with a sort of an education summit. We want to lay out our own map and move forward.

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Q: You spent six years as superintendent in the northern San Diego County school district of San Marcos and then last year in the same position in Little Rock, Ark. Can you relate how those experiences will influence what you do here?

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A: San Marcos had about 10,000 students when I left. The district was a revenue-limit district, so finances were tough there. You would have to characterize it as a suburban district that is about 40% Hispanic. Over my six years there, various socioeconomic measures actually went down while (student) test scores went up. From there, I went to Little Rock, which was a typical urban school district. It is a city that is 70% white and 65% of the school district was African-American. . . . White flight was epidemic. There also was a heavy court-ordered desegregation order and, quite frankly, it was like nothing I have ever experienced in my life. I spent the majority of my time there, thinking about, preparing for or attending (court) hearings on implementing that desegregation plan. I could only spend very little time teaching and learning.

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Q: Tell me a bit about yourself. It is hard to talk about Mac Bernd without talking about the Harley-Davidson and the nickname.

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A: I am a man of many interests and contrasts. I am in a line of work that requires me to be extremely straight-laced. People have made light of the Harley-Davidson, but that is a real enjoyment to me. I enjoy getting my hands dirty and getting out on the weekends riding. It kind of cleans out my head. I spend a lot of my time working with humans and human problems, and they are not like machines. The results are not predictable.

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Q: The Stephen Wagner embezzlement scandal: What have you been told about this?

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A: It has really been a wake-up call in the district from the community. It is a horrible thing; (the loss of) $4 million has an indescribable affect on the school district. The Board of Education is very concerned about not only itself, but also the superintendent, being responsive to the community. When a cataclysmic thing happens, it really clears people’s head and gets them focused again.

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Q: What will restore the district’s credibility with the community in the wake of the Wagner embezzlement?

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A: In San Marcos, we had the same auditing firm that the district hired here to tighten things up. We (in San Marcos) had gotten things to the point where we had a tight operation. . . . You really got to get the community involved in the financial processes of the district. If people knew what was going on, then you are not going to have the opportunity that Mr. Wagner was able to avail himself.

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Q: Moving on to other issues: The nature of a sex education curriculum has been an issue in this district. Recently at Costa Mesa High School, parents had raised concerns about a presentation which used a banana to show how to use a condom. What is a good sex education curriculum and how much is too much?

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A: State law says we have to forthrightly address some issues that students are exposed to in this society, and I think we have to do that within the bounds of good taste and what is acceptable to the community. I am not for spontaneous assemblies or other types of activities not within the curriculum. These are sensitive matters.

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Q: Is there a right way and a wrong way to present a bilingual education curriculum?

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A: It depends on who you talk to. You have got English-only proponents who say that you have to immerse these kids in English and they will pick it up by the time they get to fifth or sixth grade. Then there are people who say we have to educate them in their own language first and then make a transition to English. Probably in between there is some way that will work in this district. . . . If you talk to most Hispanic parents, they want for their children to be fully functional is this society. Even in multicultural Southern California, in order for them to do that, they will have to speak English well.

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Q: Do you speak another language?

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A: Yeah, I stumbled around in Spanish. I can probably at least get up and get through a speech if I am prepared well and get a lot of help.

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Q: What are your thoughts on campus security? There is a zero-tolerance policy for weapons in this district and on two occasions during the past school year kids as young as second or third grade were suspended for bringing a kitchen knife to school. The kids were suspended and then sent to other schools.

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A: I absolutely agree with zero tolerance. You have to look at conditions in the community to decide how to enforce it. In (San Marcos) we really didn’t need a strong policy and in (Little Rock) we had metal detection in all the secondary schools. . . . When you get into young children who don’t understand what they are doing, you have to be compassionate in how you handle it. Transferring students or taking other measures which do not result in disruption of their education and do make a strong statement for the institution, it is a good way to handle it.

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Q: The district is preparing to launch its first fund-raising drive in the community to raise millions of dollars for school instruction, equipment and maintenance. Are you any good at asking strangers for money?

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A: My focus is to be well-known enough in the community that at least I won’t be a stranger to the people I approach. There are an awful lot of things to know and people to know, but I am going to be sure they get to know me. They will know who Mac Bernd is and what he is about. The community has to feel they are a part of what you are doing.