Trustees Defend Preference for Private Schools : Education: One started his own one-student facility. They cite choice, safety, say they can still serve district.

Tom Chaffee has lived about half his 42 years in this city. He earned a diploma in 1969 from Valley High--where his eldest daughter was graduated in 1993--and last year won a seat on the Santa Ana Unified Board of Trustees.

But this fall Chaffee, a conservative who has been extremely critical of Orange County’s largest school district, pulled his four school-age children out of the system he helps run and enrolled them at Bethel Baptist, a private Christian school.

Chaffee said he made the controversial decision after his children were the targets of half a dozen alleged threats or incidents of harassment he believes were responses to his opposition to bilingual education and other classroom reform initiatives.

“I was really, really, really concerned with my kids taking the heat for me being on the school board,” Chaffee said. “I’m not going to sacrifice my kids’ education for my political position.”

But to Kathi Jo Brunning, president of the district’s Parent-Teacher Assn., Chaffee’s decision is “like a slap in the face.”

“I think it’s pretty depressing,” she said. “If a school board member doesn’t have enough faith in his own school district, then I don’t think he can adequately represent the school district. It’s kind of like a reverse conflict of interest.”

Chaffee’s colleague and frequent opponent on the board, Robert W. Balen, has a daughter who spent nine years in Santa Ana public schools but for the past two years has attended Mater Dei, a private Catholic high school elsewhere in the city. Another Santa Ana trustee, Rosemarie Avila, home-schooled her children for years before being elected, a move she was criticized for during her campaign for the board.

Elsewhere in the county, newly elected Garden Grove Unified Trustee Terry Cantrellruns Bethel Baptist and has educated his children there, including one daughter who is in 12th grade at the school. Debbie Hughes, a Saddleback Valley Unified Trustee, home-schools her child.

In Orange Unified, board member Max Reissmueller has been targeted for recall by some employees because of his decision this fall to home-school his 6-year-old daughter.

“Just because I think that I can educate my child better than the public system doesn’t mean that I can’t work to improve the public system,” said Reissmueller, a 26-year-old father of three who, like Chaffee, is aligned with conservative Christian groups. “If I thought the public school system were perfect, then I’d put her in. If everything were perfect, there’d be no reason to change anything.”

Reissmueller has advocated privatization of Orange Unified to free schools from state and federal mandates. In October, he removed his daughter from Chapman Hills Elementary and filed papers with the county to establish Orange Christian Academy, naming himself as principal, his wife as teacher and his daughter as the student body.

Reissmueller also scoffed at the idea that enrolling children in public schools should be a qualification to sit on the school board.

“The school system belongs to the community, not just the parents,” he said. “It’s the community that’s paying for the education and it’s the entire community that’s affected by the education.”

Still, many in Santa Ana said they are upset that Chaffee abandoned district schools rather than use his power on the board to solve the problems he found there.

“Would you want your City Council member to live in another town?” asked Mark Perew, a parent and school district activist who is considering a bid for the board. “Or do you want them to be there on a daily basis, involved with the community and have a stake in what happens?”

Hank Kaim, who heads the Sandpointe Neighborhood Assn., said Chaffee’s move was “almost an insult to the district.”

“He got on our Board of Education partially by saying he was a parent in our schools,” added Debby Huffman, who represents Santa Ana on the California Teachers Assn. state council. “That’s a little bit of an uncomfortable situation for him to now take them out. We’re doing a wonderful job. I don’t know what his problem is.”

Chaffee said he believes in public education but became concerned when his six children--who are in the audience at nearly every school board meeting--were allegedly mistreated on and off campus after his election to the board in November, 1993.

Chaffee contended that a classmate tried to set his son’s hair on fire in the boy’s locker room at McFadden Intermediate School. He said a McFadden teacher belittled his daughter and gave her a poor grade because of her father’s voting record.

Both children were also terrorized by gang members, Chaffee said, contending that one boy told his daughter he would “assassinate your father just like John Kennedy.”

School officials said they were aware of the incidents and had discussed them with Chaffee, but that he had never suggested any connection between his children’s troubles at school and his position on the board.

“I’m totally shocked that he’s connecting what’s happened with kids and teachers and other kids to his politics,” said McFadden Principal Brenda McGaffigan. “I’d love to have a chance to talk with him to draw him back in. I don’t want anyone to go away thinking bad things about McFadden.”

McGaffigan and Assistant Supt. Joe Tafoya said Chaffee met with his daughter’s teacher to discuss the grade, and police were notified of the alleged attack on his son. The teacher did not face any disciplinary action, McGaffigan said.

Acting Supt. Don Champlin said that if any harassment were suggested, he would investigate. “We absolutely will not stand for that,” he said.

The situation escalated May 22, when Chaffee called police to report his home being vandalized: toilet paper wrapped around the trees, eggs thrown at the house, girl’s underwear “stained with feces and blood” left on his front lawn, and a dead bunny placed in the family’s motor home, according to Chaffee’s report to police.

A month later, police officers found gang symbols etched into the side of the motor home, said Santa Ana Lt. Bob Helton said.

Chaffee has since moved to a rented house, and uses a commercial mailbox as his public address.

“I don’t want to bad-name the schools at all. There are some real good quality programs there, but there are a few students who don’t agree with me, and they couldn’t refrain from taking that out on my kids,” Chaffee said.

“My real problem was that my kids’ life was beginning to turn upside-down because of my position on the board. I needed to do something to break that up. That wasn’t my reason for joining the school board.”

Chaffee said he switched his two younger children from Jefferson Elementary to Bethel to keep the close-knit family together, though there were no serious problems at Jefferson. Besides, Chaffee said, he was dissatisfied with the children’s test scores and believed they would learn more at Bethel.

Tuition at Bethel is about $200 a month for each of the four Chaffee children, plus registration fees of $210 to $245 each.

California School Boards Assn. President Sherry Loofbourrow, a Newport-Mesa Unified trustee, said there are individual instances where it makes sense for trustees to put their children in private schools, but that in general, it sends the wrong message.

“He has the responsibility to not turn his back on the system but to improve the system,” Loofbourrow said of Chaffee. “If you make a commitment to be a school board member, it’s a total commitment. You can’t lead unless you lead completely.”

But Avila, who typically votes with Chaffee on the bitterly divided school board, said that until conservatives gain a majority on the Santa Ana board she sympathizes with the need to seek better education elsewhere.

“As a parent, you have to do what’s best for your children. As a school board member, you have to do what you can to make things better for everybody,” she said. “Sometimes you weigh it. And you always have to go with, ‘A parent would do this,’ rather than, ‘A school board member would do this.’ ”