School Office for Instruction Is Reorganized

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday approved a reorganization of the school district’s office of instruction and the appointment of four district employees to new superintendent positions, moves officials promised would help boost test scores.

Effective immediately, Carmen N. Schroeder, acting head of instructional services for eight months, will become associate superintendent overseeing instruction. Schroeder will be assisted by Andrew A. Cazares, Renee Jackson and John Liechty, who will become assistant superintendents July 1.

In the new organization, the three assistant superintendents will each oversee a third of the district’s 27 cluster administrators.

Deputy Supt. Liliam Castillo said the cluster administrators, whose duties have previously been largely operational, will focus entirely on instruction in an effort to raise test scores.

Castillo said the four new superintendents successfully competed for their jobs against 21 outside candidates.

Board member David Tokofsky, the sole dissenter in the closed-session vote, described the new structure as a “multi-headed hydra” and criticized the selection of only insiders.

He said that one person should be responsible for instruction and that it diffused responsibility to have three people reporting to Schroeder.

In other action, the board:

* Voted to reopen three closed elementary schools to relieve overcrowding. Haynes Street School in Canoga Park is scheduled to begin receiving students in the fall; Newcastle Avenue School in Reseda at the start of the 1999-2000 school year. Osage Avenue School in Westchester is scheduled to reopen as a magnet school during the 1999-2000 school year.

* Unanimously approved the appointment of 18 members to an accountability task force charged with searching the nation for ideas on how to hold district officials at all levels responsible for improving student performance. The appointees include parents, PTA representatives and experts from academia and business. The committee is to report by the end of July.