Schools Building Official Resigns

The head of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s massive construction program announced his resignation Wednesday, saying, “I’ve done what I came here to do.”

Jim McConnell, a former captain in the Navy Seabees, joined L.A. Unified five years ago when “no one had confidence” in the district’s ability to build schools, Supt. Roy Romer said in a statement Wednesday.

Romer credited McConnell with having made “amazing progress” and said he has prepared his program for a successor, to be named soon.

McConnell, 52, will leave when his contract expires in June. He has not announced a new job but said he would like to work in the private sector.

He has overseen a key phase in what district officials say is the biggest school construction program in the nation’s history -- a $19.2-billion plan to build 150 schools by 2012. So far, 55 have opened and 20 more are under construction.

In an interview Wednesday, McConnell pledged that the district would “get every child back into a neighborhood school seat, on a traditional calendar, in an uncrowded environment.”

Residents who still think of L.A. Unified schools as chain-link-encircled eyesores with asphalt yards should reconsider, he said: All of the new schools have green grass and are designed for community use.

McConnell acknowledged that many of the district’s older schools remain overcrowded and in disrepair but said they would be improved through a $7.5-billion rehabilitation program that is part of the construction plan.

Asked what he had learned in his five years at the district, McConnell offered a quote from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius: “Life is more like wrestling than dancing,” he said. “In this job it’s been important to remember that.”