Troubled School District Hires 5 Officials

The Inglewood Unified School District, where a school custodian supervisor allegedly had 51 phantom janitors on the payroll and a clerk was convicted of embezzling funds, has five new administrators to help the school district get things in order.

School Supt. Nash McKinley said the appointments were part of the district’s reorganization plans to make its administration more efficient.

Richard Bertain, who was appointed by county education officials to be a fiscal advisor to the district, has been named the new deputy superintendent for administrative services. He will be in charge of maintenance, custodial services, food service and transportation. He had been working as a consultant to the school district for two years and is well versed in running a school district. From 1978 to 1990, he was the superintendent of the El Segundo Unified School District.

Other new administrators appointed by the school board last week are Rhuenette Montle, the principal at Alessandro Middle School in Moreno Valley, who was named assistant superintendent of instructional services; Archie Polanco, assistant superintendent of personnel services for the Palo Verde Unified School District in Blythe, who was named the director of classified personnel, and Edgar Gill, the interim principal at Inglewood Adult School, who has been named director of certificated personnel.

John Rabun, the current principal at Inglewood Adult School, has been charged with embezzling $27,000 from the district to put a down payment on a $425,000 Ladera Heights home.

While Gill runs the adult school until things are straightened out, Sandra Black will be acting director of certificated personnel.

Rabun’s arrest in May follows two other scandals. Andrew Truesdale, a school custodian supervisor, was arrested in December on suspicion of putting phantom employees on the payroll and collecting $430,000.

In April, Langston Phillips, a clerk in the district’s administration office, was convicted of embezzling public funds. He reportedly stole $20,000 worth of district checks and deposited more than $4,000 into his personal account.