LAUSD’s Winners and Losers

The confused priorities within the Los Angeles Unified School District came into sharp focus with last weekend’s trip to the national Academic Decathlon, the annual competition that pits the brightest students from across the country in a grueling two-day battle of brainpower.

The team from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills won, marking the third time in five years that a Los Angeles school has come out on top. Quite a feat, especially considering that these students hail from a district ridiculed nationally for its bungling. Tamur Baig, Michael Beatty, Steve Chae, Nancy Fu, Bruce Ngo, Elana Pelman, Carina Yuen and Adi Zarchi defied the LAUSD’s reputation in claiming the glass trophy. The honor was the product of countless hours of studying under coaches Mark Johnson and Dave Roberson.

The team was cheered last weekend by relatives and teachers who helped drill its members on subjects from chemistry to the classics. It was also lauded by a gaggle of district administrators. Now here’s the rub: All but the district administrators paid their own way to the event in Providence, R.I. That’s right. Teachers who helped prepare the team took sick days and dug into their pockets to make the trip. It apparently never dawned on the organizers of the trip that the teachers’ expenses should be comped. But the district honchos got a free ride. Some took their spouses and some skipped decathlon events to go sightseeing. Those making the trip included Assistant Supt. Dan Isaacs, Cluster Administrator Joe Luskin, decathlon coordinator Jane Pollock, El Camino Principal Ron Bauer and Assistant Principal Penny Gwin.

No one disagrees that the team--whose expenses were paid by the California Academic Decathlon Assn.--might have needed administrative support so far from home. But other schools got by just fine with far fewer administrators--some of whom paid their own way. It’s not the money, really. The final bill will be only a few thousand dollars, all of it covered by a discretionary account funded with private donations.

Good sense, though, dictates that the money should have been spent instead to send the teachers who had a hand in the victory. In the end, the seven teachers might be reimbursed under a plan proposed by Isaacs. Fair enough, but too late to cleanse the image.