Parents, Students Protest Transfer of Magnet School Administrator

Parents and students Monday afternoon angrily protested the transfer of the assistant principal who had run Hamilton High School’s Academy of Music.

About 200 people, some toting instruments and others waving picket signs, rallied in support of the music magnet’s administrator, Jeff Kaufman, outside the Westside school’s concert hall.

Kaufman was reassigned to an assistant principal’s position at Emerson Middle School in Westwood. District officials and Kaufman said he had requested a transfer, but he maintained that he had sought to become a principal, not to make a lateral move.

“I’m very distraught and very unhappy,” said Kaufman, reached by telephone while traveling in New England. “I have put a lot into that school--heart and soul and countless hours. I always do what I feel is in the best interests of the students, and it is my opinion this decision is not. Maybe it’s not the intent to benefit the students at Hamilton, it’s to benefit the ones at Emerson.”

Kaufman, who turns 53 today and has headed the academy since 1991, said he would prefer to stay at Hamilton two more years to help select and train his successor until he is eligible to retire.

The music academy and a humanities magnet are separate schools within Hamilton’s main community-based school, all part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district’s local administrator, Carol Dodd, said Kaufman had aggressively pursued a transfer for more than a month, starting June 27.

“He said he was tired, that he just couldn’t handle it anymore,” she said.

Dodd said parents have been bombarding her with phone calls, e-mails and letters since the announcement.

“It’s difficult for them to understand that Jeff would ever pursue leaving Hamilton High School,” Dodd said. “I don’t feel comfortable discussing his actions with the community, but all I have been able to say is that this is an action initiated by Jeff and actively pursued by him.”

Officials had asked Kaufman several times if he were serious, Dodd said, adding that he had sent in applications and letters of intent for a transfer, as well as for a head position at a continuation school--a position he eventually declined because it would entail a $12,000 pay cut. Kaufman’s position was filled once Dodd determined that Kaufman was intent on leaving the academy.

The replacement, who Dodd said works in the district and has a background in the arts, administration and conflict resolution, will be named within the next week. District Supt. Roy Romer fully supports Dodd’s decision, said his spokeswoman, Stephanie Brady.

About 100 of the academy’s more than 900 students attended the rally Monday, along with many of their parents.

“This is truly taking someone who has made this academy a great success and punishing them,” said Mario Milch of Los Feliz, whose daughter attends the school.

As senior Ary Katz of Silver Lake colored in a sign that read, “Honk if You Love Music,” a jazz sextet played in the background.

“Without him I don’t know what this place is going to be,” Katz said. “He’s really a profound and amazing man, and without him this school will do nothing but decline.”