Sun Valley : Middle School to Get Interim Administrator

Seeking to ease tensions between the staff of Sun Valley Middle School and the school district, Los Angeles Schools Supt. Sid Thompson appointed an interim administrator Tuesday to run the campus that has been locked in a dispute over its choice of a new principal.

John Liechty, who ran the district’s middle schools unit and now works in the district’s instruction division, will begin overseeing the campus today. He will remain until a new principal is selected, said Brad Sales, district spokesman.

The school, which operates under the district’s LEARN reform program, selected Assistant Principal Manny Rangell to serve as principal, but Thompson said Rangell is ineligible because he has not yet taken and passed an administrators’ exam. Thompson said the school must select a principal from a list of eligible candidates.

But parents and teachers at the school, who met Tuesday with LEARN leader Mike Roos, United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein and school board member David Tokofsky, said they stand by their choice.

“We’ve selected the best candidate for the job,” said Lon Minard, a community representative who serves on a school panel overseeing the selection. “We can’t understand any reason why that person has not been made principal.”

Although some teachers expressed concerns about having an interim principal, Bernstein said it was a good idea as long as Liechty stays only a short time.

For his part, Rangell said he believes Liechty will ease the transition between administrators and that it could be better for the school. “We have to keep our school moving forward,” Rangell said. “If this is going to do it, fine.”

Parents, teachers and community activists have been angry for months over the issue, and last week they kept more than 350 students out of class to protest.

Under the LEARN plan, schools can select their own administrators. But Thompson and other district officials said they must abide by district personnel policies and select administrators from the eligible list of candidates.