Infighting Threatens ABC School District : Education: Disagreements among board members may erode a system that has been praised for its financial stability, test scores and academics.

After a bitter school board election last November in a district that includes five small Southeast cities, one board member persuaded his colleagues to take the unusual step of hiring a professional mediator to help resolve long-standing bickering.

Members of the ABC Unified School District board fought over issues big and small. They yelled, cursed and snickered at each other in public. And they could not agree on how to spend money. Their nonstop wrangling made for dramatic theater, but resulted in numbingly long and ineffective board meetings.

“Things (had) been so ridiculously out of hand at public meetings,” two-year board member David Montgomery said. “We don’t even talk to each other at social events.”

The half-day mediation session, attended by only five of the seven board members, worked at first. But the truce was short-lived and only a few days later the fighting broke out again.

Concerned that the feuding board was steering the district toward financial chaos, the Los Angeles County Education Office recently intervened. County officials appointed an adviser to help manage the district’s spending decisions.

The board members do agree on one thing: their all-too-public brawling threatens to erode a school district that takes pride in its financial stability, high test scores and innovative academic programs.

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It was February when Leonard Murdy, a former school superintendent who teaches management courses at USC, set up a workshop for the board that oversees a 21,000-student district that operates schools in Cerritos, Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens and parts of Lakewood and Norwalk.

By then, the bickering had been going on for years. “We all checked our guns at the door,” board member Robert Hughlett quipped about the mediation session.

Murdy urged board members to focus on education and put aside their personal differences. Reluctantly, Montgomery said, board members “agreed to disagree and respect each other.”

Three days later, the unity disintegrated when three board members claimed that the district was going bankrupt and asked county education officials to intervene. Two weeks later, the four other members put the superintendent, who had supported the request, on paid leave indefinitely.

Murdy said he was not surprised that a planned second mediation session was scrapped.

“A board is similar to a marriage,” Murdy said. “There’s some deep feelings there. . . . Some people are so locked in their beliefs, and the feelings are so strong that it’s an impossible situation.”

“I will no longer participate in this phony exercise in working together as board members,” said board President Cecy Groom. “I don’t think there’s a way to work with them.”

Other members agree that their problems run too deep for an outsider to fix.

On one side of the dispute are four board members who have enjoyed the most recent success at the ballot box and count on the support of employee unions and some parents.

On the other side are three members who have substantial backing from administrators and a different group of parents.

Some parents who regularly attended board meetings say they are growing increasingly frustrated because their concerns go unheeded by the four-member majority, parent Anthony Herrera said.

“I think it’s a district out of control,” he said.

But a teacher and union leader put the blame on the three-member minority for not trying to get along.

“They make a mockery of this board every time they sit here,” teacher Richard Hathaway told the board one night. “They’re very arrogant.”

State and county education officials say the board is one of the most polarized they have seen.

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Contending that the school system is in financial trouble, county education officials appointed an adviser April 18 who has the authority to veto spending decisions that could affect the district. County officials said the district was spending more money than it was receiving and that the spending deficit, if it continued, would have left the school system on the brink of insolvency.

“If the financial problem gets too bad . . . the trustees may lose their powers as a board,” said Assistant Supt. Patrick Keegan of the California Department of Education. Whenever conflicts surface, “both sides are adamant that they’re right. And both sides question the other side’s view of the world.”

The latest schism was fueled by a bitter strike by teachers in October that lasted 11 days.

Angry about a contract that called for a loss in pay and an increase in class sizes, teachers walked out. Before the strike was over, the balance of power on the school board had changed.

With the help of teachers, Howard Kwon, a political newcomer and retired ABC teacher, toppled a longtime board member in the November election.

With that loss, three longtime board members--Hughlett, a Cerritos Community College administrator, planning consultant Dixie Primosch and environmental consultant Jim Weisenberger--no longer had control of the board. They had favored the teacher pay cut.

The teachers campaigned for the election of candidates who favored their positions. They were able to help oust one incumbent who did not support them and keep in office two incumbents who backed them. Together, Kwon, Montgomery, a painting contractor, and Sally Morales Havice, a Cerritos Community College professor, joined board President Groom in supporting teachers’ demands.

In February, they made good on a campaign promise to give teachers a new contract that called for bonus pay and restored smaller class sizes.

The majority placed Supt. Larry L. Lucas on paid administrative leave indefinitely. They said he had grown unpopular, and teachers and other employees accused him of being autocratic. His attorney is negotiating a settlement. The majority also disputed warnings that the district was in financial trouble.

For months, the county education office tried to resolve the financial impasse by providing financial advice. But the two factions refused to meet with the county at the same time and, despite stern warnings from the county education office, repeatedly refused to cut spending.

Many disagreements, however, break out more over style than substance.

At one budget meeting in March, board members exchanged sharp words over who would get to speak.

Hughlett had flipped on a light switch near his seat, indicating that he wanted to talk. But Groom was poring over a three-inch-thick budget report and did not yield the floor. An accountant, Groom said she was busy looking for accounting errors.

After a few minutes, Hughlett waved his arm, then gave up and started talking and laughing with board ally Primosch, seated next to him. Suddenly annoyed, Groom turned their way.

“What is funny, you idiots?” Groom said.

“What are you talking about?” Hughlett shot back. “You can’t even read it,” he said, motioning toward the budget documents.

Ultimately, the board decided to delay some of the proposed budget reductions. Such delays have become a regular feature of budget talks.

Recently, the feuding prompted a change in the board’s seating chart.

Hughlett was moved away from a seat next to Morales Havice after she complained that he had tossed a clipboard in her direction and hit her in the elbow. Hughlett denied the allegation, but traded seats with Weisenberger.

The board majority has continually complained that staff was providing incomplete and inaccurate financial information and accused the minority of trying to subvert their leadership by asking the county to intervene.

At a March meeting, Morales Havice called the request for intervention a “dastardly act” done in secret. Groom said the three deserved to be reprimanded.

Trustee Primosch said the minority bloc only wanted to save the district from possible bankruptcy.

“You’re out of order,” Groom told her. She and her three board allies walked out of the room while Primosch was still talking.

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Parents and employees fear that the bickering will have fallout beyond possible financial problems. They worry that district officials are unfocused and could unwittingly damage a school district that has been the envy of its neighbors.

ABC Unified students have consistently logged impressive marks in standardized tests. On last year’s new statewide student test, ABC had the best or nearly the best scores in every category among Los Angeles County school systems.

Parents from both sides threaten to use elections next year to keep their side in power. Four school board seats now held by Groom, Hughlett, Primosch and Weisenberger will be on the ballot.

After the county’s financial adviser managed to get both sides to agree that the district’s financial crisis is real, the board finally adopted a budget last month.

After a marathon special session June 18, the board came up with nearly $1.8 million in cuts to keep the $69-million budget balanced for the coming year.

The final vote was 4 to 3.