School Board Struggles Amid Inner Conflict : Oxnard: Months of simmering frustrations involving white and Latino members finally erupt into public view.

Members of Oxnard’s elementary school board sat through much of last week’s board meeting with their heads in their hands.

Susan Alvarez fought back tears. Jim Suter revealed that he had, for the first time, insisted his wife come to a meeting to give him support. Jack Fowler, the board’s 20-year veteran, sat without expression as angry parents hurled insults at him.

And Mary Baretto, the third Latino in Oxnard’s history to win a school board seat, marveled at the sight of television cameras and a crowd of nearly 100 supporters, 10 times the size of audiences at most board meetings.

After a year spent trying to suppress arguments and minimize conflict, the board finally was forced to confront its internal division publicly.

It was the open comment portion of the meeting and the message was clear: Parents in attendance said the board of the primarily Latino school district is dominated by an all-white voting bloc that was ignoring their concerns.

“We’re not going to roll over and take this any more,” Oxnard resident Nina Duarte told the white board members at the meeting last week. “We are a majority here and if we don’t get what we want now, we will after the next election.”

Two weeks earlier, Baretto made public a letter that criticized her for being “overly accommodating to those who do not speak English.” She said she brought the matter into the open because she felt intimidated in the board’s closed sessions.

Over the past year, she said, she and Alvarez had been immobilized--unable to influence the board’s white majority on critical votes.

In fact, there was not a single instance this past year when the three white board members--Fowler, Suter and Dorothie Sterling--were not unified. And when major issues rolled around--such as the selection of a new superintendent and the choice of a principal at a school in a primarily Latino neighborhood--the conclusion was a 3-2 split, with Baretto and Alvarez in the minority.

Duarte, like many of the parents who appeared at the meeting, said she grew up at a time when Latino children had their mouths rinsed with soap if they spoke Spanish. Children were forced to “Americanize” their names--Juan became John, Maria became Mary.

Baretto called the three board members throwbacks to that era.

“I look at this board and what’s been going on and it’s like I’m reading history,” Baretto said. “It’s like nothing has changed since the ‘60s.”

The three board members bristle at that kind of talk.

“Mary has crossed the line,” Fowler said. “She has made a political spectacle out of something that was personal. That’s her problem. She only seems to care about the politics, and that has nothing to do with education.”

Until last week, most board members refused to admit publicly that there was conflict. Even the letter, originally passed to Baretto during a closed session in October, initially was considered too private for public discussion.

But now, board members acknowledge that last week’s eruption was the product of months of simmering frustration mostly kept from public view.

Alvarez said she first realized there was a conflict in January, two months after she became only the fourth Latino to win a seat on the board.

“I wanted to bring the parent element to the board,” she said. “But I never felt I needed to represent any specific group. I wanted to be a voice for all of the district’s families.”

In January, Alvarez said, she realized it was going to be more difficult than she thought.

After brief discussion, the board decided it was time to find a replacement for Norman Brekke, who, after 20 years as superintendent, announced that this school year would be his last.

According to Fowler, the board had spent years grooming Assistant Supt. Bernard Korenstein for the job.

All of the board members agreed that Korenstein had a superb record and a vast knowledge of the district. But at a Jan. 27 board meeting, Alvarez said the selection of superintendent was the most important decision a board could make and asked for more time to make a selection.

“There had been no process,” Alvarez said last week. “They just told me they had promised it to him (Korenstein) six years ago. I was never given the chance to take part in the decision.”

Fowler said he was sorry that Alvarez had no say in the decision, but he believed there was no need to institute a wider search process.

“Process is a political word used by minorities,” Fowler said. “We had a process, a long process, to groom Dr. Korenstein.”

In the minutes of the January meeting, Fowler is recorded as saying that outside recruitment efforts “are most beneficial at the lower levels of administration.”

Suter and Sterling agreed. Korenstein’s selection was approved, three votes to two.

“I don’t think I took it personally when we lost,” Alvarez said. “I love winning at board games, but this is not a game. I said my piece and they didn’t agree.”

But, she said, it was an indication of things to come.

In August, with the Robert J. Frank Intermediate School nearing completion, the board began debating how it would staff the new school.

At the end of a long meeting, after deciding to close Haydock School temporarily, Suter moved to appoint Haydock Principal Pete Nichols as principal of the new school. It was quickly seconded, and passed, on a 3-2 vote.

According to several board members, the move was made despite the fact that Baretto had complained about Nichols’ job performance several times in closed board meetings. One of the board members who voted for Nichols admitted privately that he was chosen because “no one else qualified was available.”

Baretto said there needed to be a search for other candidates. But as with the superintendent, the vote had passed before any search could be mounted.

The mood after this episode became increasingly somber, Baretto said. Communication between board members was strained.

According to Brekke, the difficulties were never so bad that they affected his staff members or the education of students in the district.

But several parents at last week’s meeting insisted that the recent events did matter. Oxnard resident Tila Estrada said the school board does more than set policy--it sets an example.

“They don’t see that what they are doing has a bad reflection,” said Estrada, who has a grandchild in a district school. “Parents go home and talk about this and the children hear about it. I don’t think it’s a healthy situation for the children to see this going on.”

Parent Teresa Orozco-Archuleta put it plainly when she spoke to the board: “I certainly hope that the message is not one that prohibits my daughter from being proud of her culture.”

Even one parent who supports the three white members said she is concerned that the dissension could affect the students.

“There has been no racial tension on the campuses for a number of years,” said Janis Johnson, president of the PTA at Haydock Intermediate School. “We have a very diversified school district. Students play together, they work together. I think that Dr. Baretto’s decision to make this public could create a problem where there wasn’t one.”

All of the board members said they believed children should be treated equally, and they did not want to send a message that suggested otherwise.

“Our problems have had nothing to do with the children,” Sterling said. “Really, they have been personal things that have been blown up.”

Board members have a laundry list of small incidents that led them to this point.

An example, Fowler said, was when Baretto insisted on playing a tape recording of an interview she conducted while at a conference. The interview was entirely in Spanish, and Fowler said it was pointless to force the board members to listen to it.

The most serious infraction--according to Suter, Fowler and Sterling--took place at a ceremony marking the renaming of an elementary school for Cesar Chavez.

The three assert in their letter that Baretto snubbed them at the event by only introducing Alvarez.

“I really didn’t think we had a problem until that event,” Sterling said. “But when she left us out, that really bothered me. I had been irritated before, but never to the point of being angry.”

The three white members insisted that they were left out because of their race. Baretto denies the accusation, saying the mistake was inadvertent.

There is one thing, however, that all board members agree upon: The fact that this seemingly minor event has become a major point of disagreement is a sign that the relationship between white board members and Latino board members has eroded.

“I knew going in that I didn’t have to like all of these people. But I needed to respect them and to trust them,” Alvarez said. “If I’m not willing to listen to them, or they aren’t willing to listen to me, we cannot do our job.”

Brekke said he suggested board members seek help from an outside counselor, but withdrew the idea because the board did not unanimously support it.

And, while the leadership of Oxnard’s 12,000 elementary and junior high school students hangs in the balance, only Suter says he is completely optimistic about the future.

“I know we can work through this,” said Suter, who will take over as president of the board in December. “Let’s get back to the business of helping the kids.”

But Baretto, and most of the parents who attended Wednesday’s meeting, said they believe that change will only come when the board has a Latino majority.

“I wish that all this tension and distrust would disappear. I wish that we could all have input on important decisions. I wish that there was openness between us. But these are like a little child’s wishes,” Baretto said. “And I know they are not going to come true.”

At least, she said, not until next November, when three board seats will be on the ballot.

Baretto and Suter both said they intend to run again. Fowler said he would not.

“After awhile, you become too much a part of the past,” Fowler said. “Clearly, we’re in a form of transition. I’ve served my time and it’s time for me to move on.”