Board Buys Out Zacarias; Interim Chief Is Cortines

Determined to end a leadership crisis that has paralyzed the Los Angeles public schools for three weeks, the Board of Education agreed unanimously Thursday night on a plan to end the tenure of Supt. Ruben Zacarias and to pave the way for his successor.

The board voted 7-0 to pay Zacarias $750,000 to retire, making it one of the most lucrative buyout deals ever for an American superintendent. Ramon C. Cortines, a highly regarded educator with a reputation as a problem solver, will take over as interim superintendent when Zacarias leaves.

The deal, to which Zacarias agreed, represented a dramatic turnaround from only a day before and includes a Jan. 15 departure date. Cortines will take over Jan. 16 and, until then, serve as an advisor in partnership with Zacarias and the district’s chief operating officer, Howard Miller, atop the nation’s second-largest school district.

“We are now going to have a district that’s well-organized and well-run,” said board President Genethia Hayes.

Cortines, who had received high marks as a superintendent in Pasadena, San Francisco and San Jose, will serve until a permanent chief executive can be recruited and hired.

Cortines had said a day earlier that he was no longer interested in the job.

The sudden turnaround was a telling demonstration of Cortines’ willingness to engage in political brinksmanship, which sources said Thursday succeeded in pushing district leaders to make another attempt to bring him into the fold. Had they not, they said, board members could have been in the position of pushing Zacarias out even though they had no one to replace him.

The end of one of the most embarrassing episodes in L.A. political history was prolonged for about three hours Thursday night by Zacarias’ apparent reluctance to agree to leave unconditionally Jan. 15. Sources said that, even after all board members had signed off on the plan, Zacarias was insisting on a chance to stay longer if he did not agree with how the district was being managed.

Serving as envoy between the board majority and Zacarias was his staunchest ally, Victoria Castro, who trotted from one camp to the other. At one point, she was heard to mutter: “I feel like a Chicana Kissinger.”

Finally, though, at 10:30 p.m., Zacarias gave in and agreed to the departure date.

The move to oust Zacarias, by a reform-minded school board majority, had become a rallying point for angry Latino activists and politicians in the city and had virtually paralyzed the district.

Even though he was not yet on the district’s payroll, Cortines had assumed a key role in helping craft a deal that would allow Zacarias to depart with dignity--while giving the district time to adjust to the transition.

But his initial deal fell apart. And on Wednesday, Cortines had told Hayes that he was no longer interested in serving, even temporarily. In an interview that day, he called L.A. Unified the “most dysfunctional district in America.”

Cortines had announced that decision after the board signed a contract with Miller giving him sweeping powers over all aspects of the district. Cortines had asked the board to delay taking that step until it could become part of an overall plan that would address the growing political controversy stirred by Zacarias’ ouster.

In addition, Cortines had become concerned about how taking the job would affect the pension he receives. It was not clear late Thursday how that latter issue had been resolved.

Earlier Thursday, at Miller’s invitation, Cortines met him for breakfast. Sources said that Harold Williams, president emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust, played a key role in persuading Cortines to return to the negotiating table at L.A. Unified. Williams, who is a close friend of Cortines, sits on the J. Paul Getty Trust board of directors. He declined to detail his involvement.

But he was enthusiastic about the prospects for the district under Cortines, whom he described as “a no-nonsense guy, someone who is tough and fair with a concern for the education of kids.”

During their breakfast meeting, Miller and Cortines found their views so much alike that “they were finishing each other’s sentences,” board member Mike Lansing said.

Prior to the breakfast, Miller and Cortines had never met. After the announcement late Thursday, Miller said he and Cortines will work as partners. “There will be a collaboration and a partnership across the full range of district issues,” he said.

Miller’s role had been a key factor in Zacarias’ departure. Having lost confidence in Zacarias, a four-member majority of the board had installed Miller, a real estate attorney and former school board member, in a job that gave him authority over all aspects of the district.

When Zacarias objected, the board voted to remove him.

In announcing the agreement, Hayes said the board must design a search process but that its first priority is to create a management structure, hire a new general counsel and write a strategic budget.

Zacarias, who has another 20 months on his contract, had said he was owed $277,000 in salary and another $157,000 for accrued vacation time. The district had reportedly offered him a retirement package worth $600,000.

Sources said that Zacarias had made a counter-offer worth $700,000, which included salary left on his contract, accrued vacation, health benefits as well as compensation for emotional distress and damage to his image.

“I’m not into squeezing the board,” Zacarias said. “I just want to leave the district on a positive note for the sake of everyone, particularly the students.”

The board later agreed to an even more generous package, which Cortines helped craft. In 1998, the school district in San Antonio bought out its superintendent in a pact valued at $780,000. Earlier this year, the Milwaukee school district agreed to spend more than $400,000 to get rid of its superintendent, Alan Brown.

In an interview earlier, Zacarias said he has talked with Cortines about the most daunting issues facing the district in the coming year.

They include negotiating with nine employee bargaining units to head off a threatened teacher strike, ending social promotion by June, laying the groundwork to build 100 new schools, resolving a worsening teacher shortage, and replacing key management vacancies including legal counsel, chief operating officer and press secretary.

“Cortines and this board are in for some rough times,” Zacarias said. “But I’ll be on the sidelines hoping the best for the district I spent 34 years in.”

Virgil Roberts, an attorney long involved in efforts to improve education in Los Angeles, predicted tangible improvements districtwide by next summer.

“Cortines is a very impatient man,” Roberts said. “He’s the kind of a guy who expects change instantaneously.”

Moreover, he said, “it’s great for Los Angeles that another great and successful Latino is replacing a Latino. That will be very healing for Los Angeles.”

Speaking broadly about what he sees as the district’s greatest challenges, he said inequities in the quality of schools must be addressed.

“You can go to school X and school Y and think you’re in an entirely different state because of the differences in the quality of instruction,” he said.

Cortines said the district must establish what every student should know and be able to do. How to teach, however, should be left up to schools and teachers, he said. In addition, he said, the schools must invest heavily in professional development for teachers “to help them be on the cutting edge” and for principals so that they understand not only leadership but instruction.

Furthermore, he insisted that every middle school offer a rigorous algebra class because those who take it have a better chance of going on to college.

“It is not just raising standards, it is helping the standards you set match the practice in the classrooms for kids and match the assessments,” Cortines said. “That doesn’t happen over night but you’ve got to start.”

Regarding negotiations that lie ahead with employees, Cortines warned that past practice, of giving every group a raise of the same size, is not likely this year.

“We’ve got to get out of ‘me-too,’ ” he said. Although all employees are needed to help solve schools’ problems, he said, “a teacher is a teacher and a principal is a principal and a plumber is a plumber . . . so we’ve got to look at the function of individuals.”

The district’s budget must be cut, and a likely target is the central office, Cortines said. But he said those cuts would be done after a thorough “functional analysis” of what was working and not working, what was essential and superfluous in the district.

“We can’t do everything,” he said. “We have to look at everything in terms of ‘How does it help boys and girls and young people maximize their potential to improve their quality of life?’ ”

Times education writer Doug Smith contributed to this story.