Seeking a Way to Communicate

A week after an elementary school principal said he was beaten at his San Fernando Valley school by anti-white assailants, outside mediators descended upon the campus to begin what they said will be a long healing process.

Members of both the city and county commissions on human relations, along with Days of Dialogue, a group that specializes in dispute resolution, met in private Monday at Burton Street Elementary School in Panorama City with selected parents, teachers, staff and administrators.

About 25 people--only four of them parents--huddled in the school’s library for two hours to discuss what steps will be taken over the next few weeks to mend frayed relations at the school, where some Latino parents have been trying to replace the principal with a Spanish-speaking administrator. About 90% of the students at the school are Latino.

The mediation group planned to reconvene today to continue its planning.

“This is a process that’s going to take some time,” said Assistant Supt. John Liechty, who oversees instruction in the San Fernando Valley. “We’re trying to get at all the issues.”

City and Los Angeles Unified School District officials declined to discuss specifics of the meeting, but said much of the discussion revolved around ways to restore communication and trust between parents and staff at the school.

“Communication clearly broke down here,” said Joe Hicks, executive director of the city’s human relations commission, who described the meeting as “productive” and “respectful, in general.”

Principal Norman Bernstein said last week that he was beaten unconscious by two men, at least one a Latino, as he arrived at the school early on the morning of Feb. 1. According to Bernstein, the men said to him, “We don’t want you here anymore, principal. Do you understand that, white principal?”

The Latino parents who had been seeking to remove Bernstein--saying he cannot communicate because he does not speak Spanish--vehemently denied any connection to the incident.

Police have no suspects at this point, but have said they are investigating the incident as a hate crime and looking into the possibility that tensions at the school may have spilled over into the community and led to the attack.

A group of at least a dozen parents have been calling for Bernstein’s removal as far back as June, according to documents obtained by The Times.

In a letter dated June 8, 1998, to Assistant Supt. of Operations Dan Isaacs, the parents identified 17 problems they had with their principal, ranging from teacher assistants setting bad examples for the children to Bernstein’s support for a district plan to place the school on a year-round schedule and his lack of support for the school’s bilingual program.

“Mr. Bernstein is not bilingual. Therefore, he is unable to communicate effectively with many of us . . . “ the parents wrote. “We, the parents of Burton Street . . . don’t want Mr. Bernstein to remain as our principal at Burton Street,” the letter concluded.

The request for his ouster came after a series of meetings, first with Bernstein and then with regional school district administrators, over differences the parents had with the principal. Saying they were frustrated by a lack of response, the parents went to Isaacs.

A half-inch stack of complaint letters, from June to December, revealed a parent-staff conflict charged with racial overtones.

“Some staff members referred to us as illegals, causing too many problems, and that we should go back to our country of origin,” said a letter to Liechty dated Dec. 7, 1998, and signed by 14 parents.

“Needless to say, we feel very offended by those remarks,” they said. “We cannot support a principal who promotes or even condones this type of behavior from staff members.”

On Friday, more than 25 of Burton Street’s 41 teachers held a news conference in front of the school to declare their support for Bernstein, calling the effort to remove him the work of only five or six parents.

Teachers, parents and administrators were united Monday, however, on at least one point: “The entire group expressed their revulsion with the beating of the principal,” Hicks said. “We’re in complete unity behind that.”

According to Hicks, the upset parents are the key to resolving tension at the school:

“It’s contingent always on the parents. The fact that they were in the meeting is a very positive sign. They could have just sat outside and thrown rocks at us.”

But one parent, who declined to be identified--as have all the parents since the issue became public--said Monday’s discussion did little to assuage those angry at Bernstein and the school district.

“Our parents are really mad and really upset,” she said, complaining about the lack of parental representation at the meeting.

The effort to remove Bernstein will continue, she added.

Meanwhile, officials called for an end to the circus-like atmosphere in front of the school for the past week and spoke out against several groups that have set up camp to advocate their views. The groups include the Jewish Defense League and the Voice of Citizens Together, which distributed literature protesting Latino immigration and political power.

“We have to begin to allow this school to get back to normal,” Liechty said.

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INNER CONFLICT

New report on city commission mediating ethnic tension at Burton Street Elementary concludes panel lacks focus, has become largely irrelevant. B2