Compton Ca Schools

The last time Compton ran its own schools, it set a new educational standard for failure. Student test scores were the lowest in California. Featherbedding was so rampant that six secretaries did the work of one. Campus facilities were scarred by unwashable graffiti and unspeakable bathrooms. By 1993, the school district was $20 million in debt, and the state Department of Education took over.

Veteran New Mexico educator Jesse L. Gonzales on Wednesday was formally named superintendent of the state-managed Compton Unified School District, and immediately urged the complete return of authority to the locally elected school board. After signing a three-year, $165,000-per-year contract, Gonzales, the 63-year-old superintendent in Las Cruces, N.M., suggested he might ask the state Legislature to remove the Department of Education from overseeing the district.

Compton's struggling school district came in for more criticism Monday when the local chapter of the NAACP called for parents to keep their children out of classes at McNair Elementary School because the campus' buildings allegedly are too dangerous. At a news conference near the school, Walter Goodin, the president of the Compton chapter of the National Assn.

Three weeks ago, veteran New Mexico educator Jesse L. Gonzales turned down the chance to be Compton's new schools superintendent, citing declining physical strength. On Monday, after a change of heart, Gonzales agreed to take over one of the most stressful education jobs in California. Gonzales, 63, will be the first locally appointed superintendent in Compton in eight years.

For years the dress code at Vanguard Learning Center has been simple and strict: white, collared shirts and black pants or skirts. But the five middle school students chatting in the courtyard each wear something different. Sixth-grader Hector Rodriguez favors dark blue slacks, while his friends, seventh-grader Christian Morales and eighth-grader Ben Howard, sport black jeans--each in distinctive styles.

A gunshot intended for a security guard claimed the life of an 11-year-old boy Tuesday as he left a crowded Compton schoolyard, authorities said. Sheriff's deputies said Alejandro Vargas was shot outside Ralph J. Bunche Middle School after classes had ended for the day by a teen-ager who apparently was trying to shoot a security guard who had chased him and some friends from the campus moments earlier.

The first of four school-based health clinics is scheduled to open next week to Compton students and their families. Funded through a state desegregation grant, the Bunche Middle School Health Center is expected to provide free medical and dental screenings, treatment for minor injuries and immunizations to families whose children are students at Centennial High School or any of its 12 feeder elementary and middle schools. The facility, at 12338 Mona Blvd.

In her office at Compton's Bunche Elementary School, Mikara Solomon yanks her hair into a bun. If she left it down, she could march into a high school and pass for an 18-year-old senior. But even with the bun and a beige business suit, she has trouble looking old enough for her job: principal. "To the extent I can, I work to keep my age a secret," says Solomon, who just turned 28. "But the good thing about being young and running a school in Compton, of course, is that I'm not the only one."

Citing long-awaited improvements in Compton schools, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union are expected to announce today the settlement of a lawsuit accusing the state of failing to fix deteriorating campuses and improve student learning. Settlement of the suit is seen as a step toward returning control of the troubled district to the Compton school board.

State education officials are expected to appoint Deputy Supt. Dhyan Lal on Thursday to take over as the state's administrator of the troubled Compton Unified School District. Lal would replace J. Jerome Harris, who has presided for two years over the school system that was taken over by the state in 1993 amid financial and academic collapse. Four members of the Compton School Board have sued the state seeking return of local control.

For years the dress code at Vanguard Learning Center has been simple and strict: white, collared shirts and black pants or skirts. But the five middle school students chatting in the courtyard each wear something different. Sixth-grader Hector Rodriguez favors dark blue slacks, while his friends, seventh-grader Christian Morales and eighth-grader Ben Howard, sport black jeans--each in distinctive styles.

The Compton Unified School District is close to hiring a veteran New Mexico educator as its first locally appointed superintendent in eight years. Jesse L. Gonzales, since 1989 the superintendent of schools in Las Cruces, N.M., received the offer Wednesday. He did not immediately accept it, but expressed interest and suggested changes in the offer. Fausto Capobianco, a school district spokesman, declined to discuss the offer but said the school board had scheduled a meeting for Friday.

Late Thursday afternoon, 17-year-old Ana Olazava, first in her class at Compton's Dominguez High School, will stand on the weathered athletic field and deliver her valedictory speech. It will be short and pleasant, betraying none of her frustrations with high school. Parents will nod and teachers will smile. Hers is the irresistible story of the inner-city valedictorian, the immigrants' daughter whose success seems to redeem the promise of tough schools in tough places like Compton.

The desk of Sheawana Armstrong, textbook clerk, sits in a long, windowless room off the school library at Compton High School. On the right side of the room, two dozen shelves hold more than 1,000 textbooks as backups in case of theft or loss. On the left, the walls are lined with hundreds of extra copies of fine literature--Shakespeare's plays, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," the Japanese internment history "Farewell to Manzanar."

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin on Tuesday declined to return authority over academics to Compton's local school board, an unexpected decision signaling that Sacramento's rule over the city's schools is far from over. Eastin's decision, announced in a letter read to the board Tuesday, contradicts the recommendation of a state team of crisis managers that monitors the state-run Compton district on her behalf.

Only weeks after regaining some of their powers lost in a state takeover, members of Compton's school board are disrupting district operations, threatening to fire employees and breaking confidentiality laws, according to a coming state report. "This behavior is alarming," says the report by the state's Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, to be made public March 27. "Some board members want to administer the district rather than to govern by policy.

A former Compton high school teacher whose claim that students soaked her in excrement made national headlines last year was convicted Monday at Compton Municipal Court for filing a false police report. Shannan Barron stood with her head lowered, sobbing, as the court clerk read the verdict, capping a misdemeanor trial that involved 24 witnesses, at least 100 hours of police time and lasted--including delays--more than a month.

Using its newly restored powers for the first time, Compton's elected school board has voted to expand kindergarten instruction from a half-day to a full, six-hour session. The Compton Unified School District was taken over by the state in 1993 because of financial and academic mismanagement. But earlier this month, citing modest improvements, state Supt. Delaine Eastin restored authority over facilities management and community relations to the seven-member board.