McKinley Nash; Inglewood Schools Chief

McKinley M. Nash, innovative and controversial educator who most recently was superintendent of the Inglewood Unified School District, has died. He was 65.

Nash died Sunday at Kaiser Harbor City Hospital after an apparent heart attack, district officials said.

Fired twice from school districts as racial tensions and money problems caused strife, Nash emerged each time with his professional reputation--and most recently his job--intact.

The Inglewood district rehired Nash in June 1997, three months after a differently constituted board fired him, when new board members favoring Nash won election. Critics had lashed out at Nash’s “brusque” and “intimidating” management style, despite the fact that during his three years at its helm, Nash had put Inglewood on a sound fiscal footing for the first time in years.

“We are solvent financially, our test scores are up and our schools are safe,” Nash told The Times as critics sought to fire him. “That is what I was brought here for, and I will do everything I can to make sure our children get the education they are entitled to.”

After the dismissal, Nash’s supporting board members obtained a court order to block the ouster until the new board members assumed office.

Head of the Inglewood schools since 1994, Nash came to California more than a decade earlier as assistant superintendent of the Centinela Valley Union High School District; he became superintendent there in 1984.

Shortly after becoming superintendent at Centinela, Nash enlisted Northrop and other aerospace companies to help him set up “Quality Circles,” used in business for input from employees to managers. The system, which encouraged staff to tell bosses what was wrong and how to fix it, had never been tried in California schools. Nash said the industry system could help schools educate children successfully, rather than simply adhere to regulations.

Nash was fired from the Centinela post in 1990, four months after 2,500 students walked out of their classes to protest racism in the district schools. Nash denied any involvement in the protest and sued the Latino-majority board for racial discrimination, later receiving a settlement of $150,000.

Nash spent four years between the Centinela and Inglewood posts as an administrator with the Assn. of California School Administrators.

He held a doctorate in education from the University of Illinois. Nash is survived by his wife, Betty; two daughters, Rena and Nina, and two sons, McKinley Jr. and Eric; a brother, Murphy, and one grandson.

A memorial service is scheduled at 4 p.m. today at the Faithful Central Baptist Church in Inglewood, and a funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Friday in the Neighborhood Church, Palos Verdes Estates.