District Intervenes in Dispute

Moving to avoid a confrontation with teachers at Fremont High School, Los Angeles Unified officials Monday assigned a mentor to work with beleaguered Principal Guadalupe Simpson.

The action came three days after about 3,000 students walked off the South Los Angeles campus to call attention to the number of substitute teachers and searches by school police, among other complaints.

Fearing that Simpson had lost control of the campus, United Teachers-Los Angeles demanded that Supt. Ruben Zacarias replace her by today or it would recommend that its members report to district headquarters and request transfers to a safer school.

The district responded by ordering Grant Middle School’s acting principal, Ron Oswald, to immediately begin working side by side with the administrator to provide counseling and guidance, said Brad Sales, spokesman for Zacarias.

“She needs some additional assistance right now,” Sales said. “He will help de-escalate tensions and resolve issues.”

Simpson could not be reached for comment, but Bev Cook, vice president of the teachers union, supported the district’s action.

“We just don’t think it’s a safe environment at Fremont right now,” Cook said. “It’s like a war zone.”

Simpson, who transferred to Fremont in 1998, has been at odds with the union for years. In 1986, as principal at Nimitz Middle School in Huntington Park, she weathered a confrontation with teachers who complained that her authoritarian style and encouragement of nontraditional teaching methods were divisive.

Her problems worsened last spring, when a Fremont teacher received a death threat and, the union alleges, Simpson and her staff bungled the response to it.

Teachers there have accused her of tyrannical behavior and losing control of the school. They say that she has failed to fill key positions such as counselors, resulting in hundreds of pupils having no classes when the summer track began in July.

Students have been demanding full-time teachers for every class, a new librarian, fewer searches and lockers for all students. On Friday, thousands left their classrooms to protest conditions.

In a letter sent to Zacarias on Friday, union officials complained that “not only have repeated death threats against teachers been tolerated, but there’s been an increasing level of violence and disruption on campus.”

That trouble, according to union officials, has ranged from youths coming onto the school grounds to “punch out” unsuspecting faculty to community members being allowed to enter classrooms and chastise teachers in front of students.

Simpson could not be reached for comment. But union President Day Higuchi said: “We want assurances that Lupe Simpson will consult with Ron Oswald on everything.”

“I think things will work out at Fremont as long as someone is baby-sitting her,” Higuchi said. “I’m sad it had to come to this.”