District Candidate Impresses Skeptics

Third up at bat for the job of guiding the Los Angeles Unified School District, Long Island school administrator Daniel Domenech on Friday managed to wow even some of those who had been poised to oppose him.

Latino activists--who made it clear that their backing still leans toward Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias for the superintendent’s position--said they were pleasantly surprised by Domenech’s knowledge of education issues, his savvy at fielding tough questions and his Spanish-language skills.

“This gentleman is a true contender,” said Alan Clayton, a representative of the Los Angeles County Chicano Employees Assn. and one of Zacarias’ most loyal supporters.

Meanwhile, candidate William E. B. Siart said he had been wrong Thursday in acknowledging that his former employer, First Interstate Bancorp, endorsed Proposition 187. The accusation was made by Latino activists and relayed to Siart, the bank’s former chief executive officer, during a news conference.

In fact, Siart said Friday, closer investigation showed that the corporation did not back the measure, which would exclude illegal immigrant children from public education. He had not cast a ballot on the issue, he said, because he was traveling at the time of the election.

Clayton and others said Domenech’s shortcoming is his lack of experience with the gigantic Los Angeles system, which they said could make him a virtual student for six months. But Domenech said he would begin making changes his first day on the job, starting with the creation and wide circulation of “school report cards.”

“The advantage to an outsider is being able to come into the district with a fresh view,” he said.

He minced no words when asked at a news conference whether he or the school board would end up running the district.

“If I’m hired, I’m in charge,” he said. “If that’s not the case, the school board shouldn’t hire me.”

Domenech faced reporters after two days of closed-door meetings with community groups. He was the last finalist to go through the private sessions for the job Supt. Sid Thompson will vacate in June. The interview process began with a three-hour interview with the school board.

Zacarias, Siart and Domenech will appear together in public for the first time this morning at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, the first of three forums scheduled around the district.

Attendance at the private meetings has been low all week, with only one student showing up out of 61 invited and only four representatives of elected officials. Some have said they had other commitments, and others said they didn’t feel it would make a difference because in the end the school board will make the decision and a majority of the members have long favored Zacarias.

Asked at a Friday news conference why he had not attended any of the sessions, Mayor Richard Riordan--who ran on an education platform and is a frequent district critic--said he had not wanted to meddle in the selection process.

“That is the job of the LAUSD school board,” Riordan said. “If I met with any of the candidates it might be considered getting involved in their turf.”

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Domenech, an administrator for the last 19 years in New York schools, must overcome district skepticism about outsiders, only two of whom have ever assumed the job. The most recent example, Leonard Britton--hired from Miami in 1987--left the district after three years. However, district insider William Anton, who followed him, stayed just 26 months.

Domenech sought to allay fears of a quick flight, saying that he would make a commitment to staying here “as long as I need to to get the job done,” but at least five years. He has held his current job as a state-appointed regional superintendent in Long Island for three years, but nearly left it in 1995 after he was hired to head the New York City school system, then was fired a day later after the mayor intervened in the process.

About that experience, he said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani simply did not like him.

“I’m not a good staff person. I’m a very good CEO,” he said. “If I’d wanted to be the mayor’s education staff person, I would have applied for that job.”

Domenech, whose family immigrated to New York from Cuba when he was 9, was the only one of the three candidates to support the district’s current approach to bilingual education, which mirrors bilingual programs in New York that he helped create.

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Although Zacarias and Siart said they want to see children transferring to all-English classes within three years, Domenech said he agrees with academics who say it takes seven years to really learn a language. The reality, he said, should not be confused with the politics.

“There’s perhaps a misunderstanding on the part of some people as to how children learn,” he said. “We have to navigate that.”

He found himself fully immersed in English when his family arrived in New York--and he said that was a difficult experience.

Bilingual education is a crucial issue in the district because more than half the students begin school speaking little or no English. Confronted with questions about why those students’ test scores continue to lag despite the district’s longtime commitment to a bilingual program, Domenech said the problem may be that those students are not getting enough English instruction.

The first action Domenech vowed to take if named superintendent is printing report cards on where each school ranks by various measures, including test scores, both within the district and nationally. Informed that this is a program already put in motion by Thompson, Domenech said he would go further, sending the school report cards home to parents and publicizing them in the media.

This approach must be tied to targeted assistance for the schools that are failing, Domenech said, which should range from teacher training to corporate adoptions.

As an example, he said he used the report card approach after New York state asked him to take over a failing district on Long Island. There, he said, in one year he increased the number of students taking a college preparatory examination from 16 to 1,000--and 400 passed it.

Times staff writer Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this story.

* SCHOOL BOND FUROR

Board chief backs off from pledge on high school; expected state funds in doubt. B3

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Open Forums

Three public forums with the school superintendent candidates have been scheduled at high school auditoriums this weekend, to be televised beginning at 9 p.m. today and 8 p.m. Sunday on the district’s station, KLCS-TV Channel 58. Also to be televised are individual interviews by a community group of each of the candidates, today from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information call (213) 625-4000.

Today

* 11 a.m.-1 p.m.: Birmingham High School, 17000 Haynes St., Van Nuys

* 3-5 p.m.: Dorsey High School, 3537 Farmdale Ave., South Los Angeles

Sunday

* 2-4 p.m.: Roosevelt High School, 456 S. Mathews St., Boyle Heights

Source: L.A. Unified School District