BURBANK : Principal Removed From High School

Burbank High School Principal Keiko Hentell, who was to have been demoted to English teacher with the end of her contract in July, has been removed from office effective Monday.

The decision was made Thursday afternoon “for the best interests of the school district,” said Supt. Arthur Pierce without further explanation. Caroline Brumm, the principal at Burbank’s Edison Elementary School, has been named interim principal.

The news of Hentell’s removal punctuated an already emotionally charged Burbank School District Board of Education meeting Thursday night, in which the principal’s supporters packed the meeting room to demand her reinstatement and a handful of teachers quietly applauded the board action to remove Hentell after her 2 1/2-year-term at Burbank High.

Teachers who opposed Hentell criticized her management techniques. But supporters praised Hentell for her concerns about minority students at the school.

In all, 58 speakers addressed the board Thursday night. Nearly 100 packed the City Council chambers and as many as 50 more watched the meeting on television in two other rooms at Burbank City Hall, where the session was held. Speakers presented petitions of support signed by 90 Burbank High employees and 300 students.

“She will not leave Burbank defeated,” Burbank resident Ted McConkey said. “She has the respect of her colleagues, the support of her friends, and most of all, the love of her students and because of this she is a success.”

At the start of the session, Hentell read a four-page statement that she was not asking for her job back, but wanted to “defend my greatest asset, my reputation.”

When she came to Burbank High in 1991, the school was 37% Latino, but only a small percentage of those students were in advanced classes. She said she supported the school’s Latino club and Young Black Scholars to give those students a sense of belonging.

She criticized the board for not being responsive to the needs of all parents and students and representing only a small segment of the community, despite a stated philosophy that emphasizes a philosophy of equal education.

“I can only surmise that the real reason I have been relieved of my position is that I took your own philosophy too seriously,” Hentell said.

However, board members would only reaffirm that she was not being removed because of her support for ethnic groups at the school and did not offer any further explanation, except to say that the decision was made after a long evaluation.

“This is not a racial issue,” board member Robert Dunivant said.