Eye of the Storm

In a community where the school superintendent has become a lightning rod for controversy, Inglewood voters will have a choice Tuesday between 14 candidates running for three openings on the often contentious city school board.

The new school board will be charged with deciding, among other things, the fate of Supt. McKinley Nash, whose contract is scheduled to expire in 1998.

A longtime educator, Nash, 63, is revered and reviled in Inglewood. During his three-year tenure, the district has become fiscally sound for the first time in years, several embezzlement schemes have been uncovered and prosecuted, and elementary school test scores have improved.

But in recent weeks, Nash has also come under attack for having a “brusque” and “intimidating” management style, and as a result the current board has hired legal counsel to discuss issues relating to his performance.

Most candidates in Tuesday’s election have criticized Nash’s leadership and many district employees are at odds with him too. During an investigation prompted by Nash last week into a district employee’s appropriation of Medi-Cal funds, Inglewood police seized a computer and several documents belonging to that employee, Hollis Dillon, director of special services, instructing “decision makers” on how to remove the superintendent. Conducting political activities at the district offices is prohibited.

A Feb. 24 memo found during the search suggested that the board fire its current lawyers since they are “beholden to the superintendent” and proposed that the members hire a law firm that “has recent experience involving termination of contracts, in particular the contract of the superintendent.”

Board members later voted 3 to 2 to hire Liebert, Cassidy and Frierson--the firm that represented the Centinela Valley district when its board fired Nash in 1990. The former superintendent later filed a dispute over his contract, and the district settled the claim for $150,000.

In addition, police found several documents that Dillon had allegedly written urging voters to reelect board members Larry Aubry and Dexter Henderson and to elect challenger Cliff Mitchell in place of incumbent Thomasina Reed. Dillon, who could not be reached for comment, was suspended Monday without pay pending an investigation.

Nash said he doesn’t want to get involved in the politics of the district and contends that he is simply doing the job he was hired to do.

“We are solvent financially, our test scores are up and our schools are safe,” Nash said. “That is what I was brought here for, and I will do everything I can to make sure our children get the education they are entitled to.”

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Only a few challengers and one incumbent have voiced support for Nash in recent weeks. Reed, a longtime Nash supporter seeking a third term on the board, has been an outspoken opponent of the board members who Dillon allegedly campaigned for in his letters and said she is outraged at his reported attempt to derail Nash and her own reelection bid. She recently filed a lawsuit against the other board members for allegedly violating her right to free speech by silencing her at board meetings.

“Mr. Dillon said he’s got three board members in his pocket and I guess he thinks I’m not one of them,” said Reed. “He has clearly advised the other board members on how to do business and they seem to be following it.”

Aubry, a nine-year board member and staunch critic of Nash, said he had never seen Dillon’s memo and adamantly denied that board members were following the instructions that Dillon allegedly wrote.

Aubry, however, was angered that Nash brought in the Inglewood police to district offices.

“This Gestapo-type action has no place in the district,” said Aubry, 63. “We have our own resources. . . . Calling in the police was like calling in the storm troopers. It’s flexing the same old intimidation tactics.”

Challengers agree that the board spends more time fighting than discussing such issues as the district’s uneven educational efforts. While many Inglewood elementary schools test higher than the state average, high schoolers are ranked lowest in the county when it comes to SAT scores.

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As a result, several challengers are making plans to reshape the district. They include former school district secretary Eveline Ross and Mildred McNair, both previously unsuccessful school board candidates; Cliff Mitchell, chairman of the Inglewood Neighborhood Empowerment Council, and Elizabeth Khoury, a former Inglewood teacher and community leader.

Other candidates include Chiemezie Okonko, a recent graduate of Inglewood High School; Bwana Chakar Simba, a former adult school teacher and tennis coach in the district; retired Los Angeles teacher Helen Monteilh; Alice Grigsby, an El Camino College librarian; Leonard Ross, a Los Angeles police sergeant, nonprofit organization controller Patricia Perry, and resident Cresia Green Davis.

The incumbents running for reelection are Reed, an attorney and 20-year Inglewood resident; Aubry, a retired county human relations employee, and Henderson, executive director of the South Central Los Angeles Regional Center, a state agency that serves developmentally disabled children and adults.

“We’ve had a number of impediments that have kept us from focusing on the real issues,” said Henderson. “A lot of that is behind us now, and it’s time for us to move forward.”