Discipline Possible for Officials Linked to Grade Changing : Education: School trustees say such action could take place when the probe is completed. They also praise new rules that spell out course work policies.

As Brea Olinda High School employees corrected yet another batch of newly discovered errors in student transcripts Tuesday, district trustees said they will consider disciplining employees over the ever-widening scandal--but not until an attorney has finished his investigation into the matter.

After learning that an independent auditor had found about 600 instances of transcript altering last year--nearly twice the number school officials had suspected--school board members said they are increasingly frustrated with the illegal grade changing at the award-winning high school. But they said they are pleased that a chunk of the investigative process is complete.

“One (instance of transcript tampering) is too many for me. More than one is way too many,” Trustee Bernie P. Kilcoyne said. “It’s very disappointing, to say the least. There’s no excuse for it.”

Kilcoyne agreed with colleagues on the board that no action should be taken against Principal John Johnson or others until Ronald Wenkart, an attorney with the Orange County Department of Education, completes a separate investigation. But he added: “If discipline needs to be taken, then we’re going to take it.”

Trustees also praised a new policy adopted Monday night that imposes strict rules limiting the number of courses students can take pass/fail instead of for traditional letter grades. The policy also limits the number of courses students are allowed to repeat to improve their grades.

Board member Barbara Paxton said public focus on the grade-changing issue this summer “has been stressful on all staff and stressful for the board, but I think . . . the bottom line (is) it’s going to be good for kids.”

“I think this has made us look at things we wouldn’t otherwise look at,” Paxton said, “and has made us stronger.”

According to Rachael Alcorn, the Sunny Hills High School registrar who was hired this summer to audit Brea Olinda’s grades for the 1993-94 academic year, 287 student transcripts were altered, typically after courses were complete.

That included 238 instances in which course titles were changed and 156 instances of letter grades being illegally changed to “pass notations,” according to Alcorn’s report, delivered at Monday night’s school board meeting.

Alcorn said Monday night that she found 32 uncorrected student transcripts despite statements in June by retired Supt. Edgar Z. Seal and Principal John Johnson that all the transcripts were fixed months ago.

Administrators said those transcripts, including 10 from the Class of 1994, were fixed Tuesday. But Supt. Peggy Lynch said she is unsure whether state law requires--or even allows--the school to send corrected records of graduates to colleges and employers.

According to the new policy adopted Monday, students who repeat classes to improve their grades will not be awarded double credit. The only classes that can be taken for repeat credit, according to the policy, are: photography, performing arts, journalism, yearbook, English as a Second Language, student government and physical education.

The new policy also reduces the courses students can take pass/fail to: beginning typing, office aide, peer tutor and science lab.

Some critics of the high school said Tuesday that they are skeptical about the potential success of the strict new policy.

Linda Bridge, the former math teacher who initially filed a grievance with the teachers union that brought the transcript altering to light in May, pointed out that Brea Olinda already had policies in its handbook prohibiting use of pass notations in academic classes and preventing grades from being changed after the fourth week of class. Those policies were broken hundreds of times last year, she noted.

“That is the Brea way,” said Bridge, who now teaches at Long Beach City College. “There is no rule at Brea that cannot be broken. That is the bottom line of this whole thing.”

Janet Kolb, an English teacher who complained about the grade changing to the state association that credentials educators, said Tuesday that she was saddened by the news that there were 600 instances of transcript tampering just last year.

“Even I did not realize the magnitude of the problem” she said. “I continue to be shocked and appalled.”