When It Comes to an Ugly Situation, This One’s a Beauty : Election: Deficit-ridden Compton school district draws strong response from board candidates who think their management styles will make a difference, against all odds.

WANTED: Compton school trustee.

PAY: None.

AUTHORITY: None.

HOURS: Irregular, sometimes long and late.

DUTIES: Receive regular, pointed abuse from community members and employees and help manage a school system plagued by millions of dollars in debt and some of the state’s lowest student test scores.

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It’s hard to imagine throngs rushing to apply. But 20 people have signed up to run for four seats on the seven-member board. The varied field of candidates includes an incumbent, a former board member, educators, business people, retirees, concerned parents and community activists.

The leading vote-getters will sit on a panel with little authority. Board members surrendered control of the district to the state as a condition of a $10.5-million state loan for the school system. They also forfeited a $1,000-a-month stipend. The district recently got state authorization for an additional $9.4-million emergency loan.

Incumbents Manuel Correa, John Steward and board President Kelvin D. Filer are not seeking reelection. Only incumbent Sam Littleton is left to absorb the barbs of challengers, who almost uniformly condemn the school board, but are divided on the performance of the state-appointed administrator.

Littleton said the school system was making academic progress under board leadership and that trustees deserve little blame for the financial problems.

“The board really had nothing to do with that, but it’s hard to convince anyone of that,” Littleton said. He said the board immediately replaced then-Supt. J.L. Handy after learning of the financial problems.

Littleton rarely speaks at board meetings, but said his quietness should not be mistaken for detachment. “I was never one to make a lot of noise, but I do all right.”

The retired social worker will be seeking his fourth term.

“I believe experience is what is needed to steer the district to fiscal solvency,” said Littleton, who declined to state his age.

Challenger Robert E. Pullen-Miles, one of four challengers who are in their 20s, argues for change. “The problems stem from finances, not a lack of finances, but a misappropriation of funds,” said Pullen-Miles, 26, an emergency medical technician. “These guys are supposed to be watchdogs.”

Challenger Twone T. Flowers, a 23-year-old teacher’s aide at Whaley Middle School, said classrooms remain overcrowded and short of school supplies under State Administrator Stanley G. Oswalt.

“Our curriculum is outdated,” Flowers said. We’re still using the same books as when I was here and my cousins before me.”

Challengers Veronica Spellman-Powell, Maggie Trimble and Mae Thomas echoed that view.

Spellman-Powell, 35, a former Compton school secretary, works as an adult school teacher in the Alhambra school district. She would like to see regular, understandable financial updates distributed to parents and employees.

Trimble, 51, is a community volunteer whose complaints about school district conditions and actions have become a regular part of board meetings. She says Oswalt has been inaccessible. “He doesn’t listen and he doesn’t talk to people.”

Thomas said educational programs have suffered because of job cutbacks and salary reductions. “I don’t see how students can get a quality education when people are concerned about their living,” said Thomas, 54, a county health worker.

Walter Goodin, 45, a pastor and a paralegal, credited Oswalt for tackling a difficult job, but “I’m concerned that blacks are being laid off, but not Latinos and whites.” Goodin added that he thinks the state takeover in Compton is illegal.

Michael L. Hopwood, a teacher and union leader in the Pomona school district, said Oswalt earned poor marks in public relations. As for budget cuts and job assignments, “he had guts enough to make decisions the board refused to make.

“He’s brought in some honest people where before there was mismanagement.”

Gorgonio Sanchez Jr. called Oswalt capable.

“It is a sad thing that the state had to come to take over and tell us we’re doing wrong,” Sanchez said. “I feel it was necessary. This could be a wake-up for the community. You have to be on top of the issues, on top of everything.”

Sanchez, 61, a quality control manager for a company that makes aircraft parts, is the only Latino board candidate in a district where 57% of students are Latino. Incumbent Correa, the board’s only Latino member, has been in poor health and is leaving the board after 23 years.

Challenger Toi Jackson, who trains employees for a computer marketing company, praised Oswalt for improving the physical conditions of schools. “There were not water fountains in some of the schools. Children had to leave school to use the restroom,” said Jackson, 27, a community volunteer.

Like it or not, Jackson added, board members will have to learn to work peaceably with the state administrator to push the district forward.

That view was shared by other candidates, including John Wilbert Russell.

Russell 26, said his job as food services supervisor in the Torrance Unified School District taught him how school systems function. Russell said district academic programs need improvement, but he is reluctant to criticize officials until he can study problems from the inside.

Russell, Sanchez, Jackson and Hopwood were endorsed by the teachers union.

Nabeehah “Queen” Al-Uqdah, president of the Dominguez High School PTA, said her qualifications include a “Ph.D. in parent involvement.” She wants to see a regular districtwide newsletter for parents, similar to the one she has started at Dominguez. She also wants schools to offer job training for parents and after-school activities for children.

Saul E. Lankster said he would insist on high standards for students and employees. “We’ve got to get away from wanting something to be handed to us,” said Lankster, 48, a producer and host of a cable television entertainment and public-affairs show.

“We have to be able to compete with mainstream society in every angle and aspect of our daily lives. We don’t want to hear that.”

Lankster served on the board from 1977 to 1981 and narrowly lost a reelection bid.

Charles W. Peters, the only candidate from Carson, said his goal would be to restore financial stability by cutting administrative staff where possible and insisting that all employees be productive. “We would do more with less,” said Peters, a community volunteer who operates a substance-abuse clinic in Inglewood.

Attempts to reach candidates Queen Nassoma Bahati, Otha Ray Scott and Keith Young were not successful. Shirley J. Briggs and Carolyn Langie Standback will appear on the ballot, but have withdrawn from the race.

Burnell Montgomery, a retired construction worker, changed his mind about running in the middle of an interview after learning the limitations of the job.

“I was trying to get in on some part-time work,” he explained. “If it’s not a paying job, there’s no use in me losing my time. I’d rather let somebody else have it.”