Spirited School in a Troubled Town Clings to Life

It is a Thursday morning, time for weekly chapel at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Compton, and a joyful noise is rising to the dark rafters. Clad in plaid jumpers or navy slacks and red sweaters, youngsters from the adjoining day school clap in rhythm and sing out “This Little Light of Mine.”

The children’s buoyant mood belies the day-in-and-day-out struggles of their school, which shares the green-stucco church’s tidy but cramped corner lot.

At a time when parents disenchanted with Compton’s beleaguered public schools are seeking alternatives, enrollment at St. Timothy’s this year tumbled to 120, from 151 last year. Family relocations and hard times conspired to keep many children from enrolling.

The plunge in $200-a-month tuition payments has made survival that much more difficult for the African American school, which has no endowment or other means of regular support. A hastily assembled scholarship fund set up for the 20% of students whose families could not afford to pay full tuition was quickly drained.

Even as many parents cling to St. Timothy’s as a safe haven in a tough neighborhood, the school finds itself barely able to cope with everyday costs, let alone to improve the campus in the hope of attracting more pupils.

Yet the Rev. Stephen Mungoma, the Uganda-born priest in charge of the parish and the school, sees good things ahead, maybe even miracles, thanks to a band of earthly angels who have taken the school under their wing.

“They are big problems, but they are manageable,” Mungoma said of the challenges.

Lending the biggest hand has been St. Matthew’s Parish School, a financially blessed institution in affluent Pacific Palisades. About 15 years ago the two schools formed a loose partnership, and, with the help of St. Matthew’s, St. Timothy’s is poised to buy a neighboring property, a vital first step toward expanding and updating the school.

The Ahmanson Foundation donated money to repave an old, cracked parking lot, which the students use as a playground.

Meanwhile, architecture students at Cal Poly Pomona have made a project of developing a master plan for the school. Inspired by a biblical verse--”I am the vine; you are the branches”--one student designed a series of modular units branching out from a main building.

Although all this has been helpful, the efforts fall shy of what St. Timothy’s needs to accomplish its ambitious goals, including, eventually, the construction of a larger school that would meet the region’s costly seismic codes.

In the nearer term, Mungoma also wants to buy new furniture and educational supplies for the preschool, secure more computers for every classroom and boost teachers’ pay, which for many has stagnated at a demoralizing $15,000 per school year.

His mission is more than just professional. His 7-year-old daughter, Delight, is a second-grader at the school, which includes preschool through eighth grade.

Mungoma, who received a master’s degree at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena in the 1980s and is now working toward a doctorate, recognizes that his indomitable spirit can get the school only so far. The missing ingredient is money, always in short supply.

Despite the reduced enrollment, space at the school is so tight that two grades are crowded into each classroom. There is no equipment for science experiments. A makeshift computer lab is jammed into a tiny loft above the kitchen.

Yet St. Timothy’s continues to attract a loyal cadre of families.

“I think it’s the best-kept secret in Compton,” said Essie French-Preston, vice president of student affairs at Compton Community College and president of the St. Timothy’s Board of Trustees. Her son, Louis Jr., attends sixth grade at St. Timothy’s; her daughter, Rachel, graduated last year and now goes to Cerritos High School.

Parent Charlie Hall said he values St. Timothy’s because of its homey atmosphere and the dedication of its teachers. As part of a pilot program, the county provides a monthly check for his fifth- and sixth-grade daughters, whom Hall and his wife, Carol, adopted out of foster care. The Halls use the money to pay tuition.

Hall said his own job, cleaning a Ralphs supermarket at night, has driven home for him the importance of a good education, which he said he did not get.

Carol Hall said St. Timothy’s has helped correct behavioral problems that the girls exhibited after years in foster care.

Now, she said, “they wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”

‘This School . . . Feels Like a Family’

During a recent chapel service, Mungoma, 51, asked guests to introduce themselves. One was Lavella Thomas, 18, a St. Timothy’s graduate who now attends Compton Community College and hopes to transfer to USC.

“This school is really small. It feels like a family,” Thomas said. She began there at age 2 and recalls getting a “really good” education that included learning to read at 4.

On top of the perennial lack of funds, neighborhood crime once threatened the school’s existence. In years past, gang members battled it out on the very corner where the school and the 75-year-old church stand. Drug dealers were neighborhood fixtures. A pupil’s father was shot to death across the street.

Then a few years ago, John Lathrop, the now-retired rector of St. Timothy’s, urged the congregation to stand up to the criminals. They and their neighbors patrolled the area, alerting police to any trouble.

During the time of heavy gang activity, enrollment plunged to as few as 75 children, but it bounced back as the neighborhood improved. In 1998, Lathrop persuaded Mungoma to take over both parish and school, exhorting him, an African, to serve as a role model for the children.

St. Timothy’s is unusual among Episcopal schools in that it operates on a shoestring budget. Most other Episcopal campuses across the nation, even those in urban centers, have managed to attract endowments from benefactors. St. Timothy’s has not been so fortunate.

Episcopal schools have long fought their image as educating only the white elite in ritzy communities. Most Episcopal schools are more diverse than the neighborhoods they are in and offer significant financial aid, said Serena Beeks, executive director of the Diocesan Commission on Schools in Los Angeles.

For example, St. James’ Episcopal School, just east of Hancock Park, is 40% white, one-third Asian American, 18% African American and 6% Latino, with 4% of other ethnicities, including many mixed-race children. About 10% of the students receive financial aid.

Of the 36 preschools and schools in the six-county Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, St. Timothy’s and St. Matthew’s are among the least diverse. They represent opposite ends of the racial and socioeconomic spectrum but have managed to find a common cause.

In its attempt to overcome its elitist image, St. Matthew’s has teamed up with a number of disadvantaged schools, public and private.

“We figured there have to be . . . ways to get our community in touch with the diversity that is Los Angeles,” said Les Frost, the headmaster. His connection with St. Timothy’s goes back 15 years, and, he said, the Compton school “has always been hanging by a thread.”

Of all the diocesan schools, St. Timothy’s has “the greatest needs and most heart,” Beeks said.

So many needs, in fact, that Mungoma doesn’t know where to begin. The preschool, the 38-year-old school’s foundation, will be one of the first areas targeted for modernization and new supplies.

Mungoma recognizes the tough slog ahead. He continues to hope that more angels will come forward to help him realize the “101 ideas” he has for the school.

“The Lord brought me here,” he said. “I want the kids to learn. I want the best for them.”