Grade School Principal’s Ouster Sought

Sign-toting parents and students at Hart Street Elementary School called Wednesday morning for the ouster of Principal Dorothy Padilla, accusing her of neglecting medical emergencies involving students with broken bones.

As the school increased security and drivers waved and honked in support, about 30 parents and their children picketed outside the school and denounced Padilla, who was removed as principal of Eastman Avenue Elementary School in East Los Angeles in November 1992 after weeks of parent protests and a complaint to the Los Angeles Board of Education.

Parents complained Wednesday that Padilla was indifferent toward neighborhood gangs and drug deals, that she bullied parents and threatened to turn them over to immigration officials. Most serious, they said, was her reported refusal to call an ambulance for a student with a leg fracture.

“[Padilla] is not interested in the parents and students,” said Juana Mojica, who is representing the parents as an advocate with the nonprofit San Fernando Valley Partnership. She said parents plan to demonstrate again this week and next, and will keep students home from classes.

Hart parents said they plan to take the issue before the board this summer.

In fall 1992, more than 800 parents and nearly all teachers at Eastman Elementary signed petitions asking the district to remove Padilla, citing concerns that she tried to cause divisions between parents and teachers, among other issues.

“There was a lot of bullying and intimidation,” said Tomas Fresquez, who was an Eastman parent. He and his son said they plan to protest today with Hart parents.

Padilla, who is in Hawaii this week on a vacation that school officials said they approved about a month ago, could not be reached for comment.

But Los Angeles Unified School District administrators acknowledged that the principal has received complaints before and that they are seeking help from a district mediator.

Padilla “had problems” at Eastman, said Joseph Luskin, a San Fernando Valley cluster administrator. “That may be so. What I’m concerned about is 1999, and what she’s doing here. We are trying to work with the parents and the staff so we can reach a common denominator.”

Beyond those from Eastman and Hart, Luskin and other district officials said they were unaware of any additional complaints against Padilla, who has been with the LAUSD for about 28 years and a principal at five schools since 1988.

The district has received a letter with about 40 signatures of Hart parents supporting Padilla and her staff at the 1,100-student school, Luskin said, adding that teachers there have also expressed support for her.

“I support her 100%,” said Jessica Irias, a parent volunteer who has three children at Hart. “The kids love her, and she has worked so hard at campus safety” and improving literacy, she said.

The district found no wrongdoing in the handling of two incidents in which school officials did not call for an ambulance for students who had suffered broken bones.

“To my understanding, everything was handled appropriately,” said Luskin, who said the cases were reviewed and approved by the district’s nursing supervisors. “There was no negligence on anyone’s part.”

Accusations from parents, Luskin said, may not be accurate. “They have their perspective,” he said.

However, an emergency room report from Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center confirmed serious injuries to a 7-year-old boy, Juan Hernandez, who slipped last week in a puddle at Hart and fractured his left elbow.

His mother, Maria Hernandez, who provided the report, said that about an hour after the June 29 accident, the school nurse drove Juan to their Canoga Park home and suggested the mother take him to the hospital, which she did. He had surgery the next day, may need additional surgery and will require a sling for at least six weeks, as well as medications.

“The doctors told me that it was too late to set his arm,” Hernandez said with the help of a Spanish interpreter. “[The school] should have called an ambulance.”

School nurse Helen Nelson declined to comment.

Hospital officials also would not comment, citing confidentiality issues. A medical report stated that Juan “had significant displacement at the time of injury.”

“The school didn’t take care of my son,” Hernandez said.

Also speaking through an interpreter, Maria Hernandez (no relation to Juan’s mother), a parent volunteer, recalled how her daughter fell playing on the schoolyard before classes started April 20. Hernandez said the school nurse wasn’t there that day, but she was on campus herself, rushed to help her daughter and asked Padilla to call an ambulance.

“[Padilla] wouldn’t call an ambulance because of the cost involved,” said Hernandez, who drove her daughter, Rosamaria, to a nearby hospital where doctors treated the 11-year-old girl for a fractured leg.

“I was crying and it hurt really bad,” said Rosamaria, who sat in a wheelchair Wednesday and waved a sign that read, in English and Spanish, “The Definition of Insensitive: Dorothy Padilla.”

Speaking generally about medical emergencies, Tricia Chicagus, a coordinator with the district’s nursing services department, said school nurses are registered nurses with special credentials and that such situations are left to their professional judgment.

“Cost is never a factor in calling for an ambulance,” she said. “The health and safety of a child always comes first.”