Embattled Los Angeles Schools Supt. David L. Brewer vowed Tuesday to stay on the job amid an abortive attempt to force him to resign as head of the nation's second-largest school system.
Brewer, a retired Navy rear admiral midway through a four-year contract, said nothing would change in his approach to the job.
"You will not see any difference in my behavior up until the last minute of the last day that I'm in this job," he said in an interview with The Times. "After 35 years in the Navy and working in life and death situations . . . you learn to basically compartmentalize."
Early this year, Brewer addressed criticism of his administration by bringing in veteran retired Supt. Ramon C. Cortines to manage day-to-day operations. That move was widely viewed as a positive. It failed, however, to repair critics' perceptions that Brewer's management skills are not equal to the task of navigating the Los Angeles Unified School District's politics and funding crisis.
Board of Education President Monica Garcia attempted to lead an effort to dislodge Brewer but it began to fall apart Monday when she failed to persuade a key board member to show up at the meeting.
Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte was attending a previously planned, weeklong meeting of the California School Boards Assn. in San Diego. Despite Garcia's entreaties, LaMotte declined to return.
Garcia and her allies were reluctant to act against Brewer, who is black, without LaMotte, the board's only African American member.
Garcia tried to reach LaMotte in person and even dashed to Union Station in an attempt to catch her before she boarded a 2 p.m. train Monday, an aide to Garcia said. The panting aide, running in high heels ahead of Garcia, reached the platform just as the train doors closed.
In an e-mail, LaMotte said she later received a "dastardly request" to return Monday "via train or chauffeured car."
The request came from Garcia, who also called other board members to alert them of a discussion about the superintendent's future. Board member Richard Vladovic, who is sick with pneumonia, struggled out of bed to make the meeting at Garcia's behest.
LaMotte judged the entire last-minute notification as questionable. She has long been suspicious of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his attempts to influence the school district through his alliance with Garcia and other board members he helped to elect.
