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Controversial Principal Given Transfer at Her Request

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Beryl Ward, the former principal at Northridge Middle School chronicled in a Times special section last year, has been transferred at her request to Van Nuys Middle School, officials said Thursday.

Ward asked for the transfer after a year of turmoil in which teachers openly clashed with administrators, said John Liechty, who oversees the district’s middle schools unit. Ward’s critics said her problems had been brewing for some time and that tensions reached a pitch last year after the publication of the Times section, titled “Hard Lessons,” which examined many aspects of campus life.

“When that article came out, it divided the staff,” Liechty said. “It put her on the defensive. Everyone kind of forgot her fine leadership. She just went through what I consider total hell.”

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Frank Randa, a Northridge math teacher and the former teachers union representative, said Ward was a “tough” administrator who made few friends on the staff.

“There were teachers who for many years didn’t get along with her and that group grew over the years,” Randa said. “She was a very strong individual. When she wanted something done, she didn’t stop until it was done.”

Teachers at the school asked for Ward to be transferred, but Liechty said he would not have made the move if Ward had not asked for it. “I’m in her corner 1,000%,” Liechty said. “I know there’s an element at Northridge who believe they’ve won. It’s not about winning and losing.”

Ward did not return telephone calls Thursday.

She replaces Larry Foster, a longtime district administrator who retired. Robert Kinsella, a former principal at Gompers Middle School in South-Central Los Angeles, has been assigned to Northridge.

Ward, who came to the Northridge school in 1990, eagerly embraced new reform efforts aimed at making junior high schools into more nurturing environments for adolescents. She wanted teachers to give fewer D and F grades, she wanted more team teaching and group work, and she wanted teachers to observe each others’ techniques.

Her efforts made some teachers bristle. Some believed she was pitting teachers against each other and that her philosophies were designed more to make students feel good than to learn more.

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But Liechty said the school was on the cutting edge of reform. Ward “always did what she believed to be best for kids,” Liechty said.

In the process, she met resistance. Teachers’ morale already was low from taking a 10% pay cut and they refused to do extra work without extra pay.

Liechty said he hopes that tensions at the school will be diffused and that the reform efforts will continue to help raise student achievement.

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