Vote Due on Personnel Policy : LAUSD: Supt. Sid Thompson will ask board to let some schools hire principals regardless of whether they have passed the required exam.

Under pressure to change Los Angeles school district personnel policies, Supt. Sid Thompson will ask the Board of Education today to allow some schools--including Sun Valley Middle School--to hire principals regardless of whether they have passed the required exam.

The new hiring guidelines, revised by Thompson since the board debated the issue last week, are expected to quell the discontent at Sun Valley--and Wilson High School--where teachers and parents want to hire administrators who have not passed the written exam. The superintendent had previously said failure to pass the exam barred those administrators from becoming principals.

But parents, some board members and teachers’ union officials have said the guidelines should be changed. They argue that schools operating under the district’s LEARN reform plan--which is intended to allow more decision-making by local teachers and parents--should be given greater hiring latitude.

The board last week postponed acting on new guidelines because organizations representing principals and other administrators complained bitterly that they had been shut out of the process. Efforts to reach Eli Brent, president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, were unsuccessful late Wednesday afternoon.

If approved by the school board, the new guidelines would require parents and teachers at LEARN schools to explain to the superintendent why the otherwise-unqualified candidate was chosen and how that administrator would improve student achievement. The candidate also would be required to make such an argument.

If the superintendent approved the school request, the administrator could be hired under a special board rule. But in order for those principals to remain in that position permanently, they would still have to pass the exam at the first opportunity.

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District officials said the superintendent decided to expedite the issue after some board members and teachers union leaders complained about the lengthy delay. Further, many of the schools’ parents and teachers were angered by the postponement last week and by the possibility that their top candidates might be rejected.

“The superintendent’s feeling was that this process needed to be brought forward as soon as possible to reduce the concerns and anxieties being raised in the local communities where this is being addressed right now,” said Assistant Supt. Dan Isaacs.

“I think he wanted to make this as timely as possible.”

To ease tensions at Sun Valley, where parents and teachers picketed in protest of the superintendent’s rejection of their choice, the district has appointed a temporary principal. The school’s principal was transferred nearly four months ago, and the school has been battling the district over a successor nearly that entire time.

If the board approves Thompson’s initiative today, the parents and teachers will then be able to name their own candidate as principal.