Compton Ca Schools Finances

The very progress report that Assemblyman Carl Washington hoped would speed Compton Unified School District's return to local control instead projects a long road ahead. The document, released Monday by a team of outside reviewers, indicates that there has been improvement but much remains to be done before the district is ready to take over from state administrators who have been in charge since 1993.

Legislators this week rejected a proposal to return the Compton Unified School District to local control. Despite an eleventh-hour push by the bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Carl Washington (D-Paramount), the Assembly's Education Committee voted 8 to 4 late Wednesday evening to kill the plan. The state took control of the district in 1993, when school officials reported a $20-million shortfall. The district is expected to return to local control eventually.

After years of bitter fighting over control of Compton's schools, officials from the city and the state Department of Education are trying to hammer out a detente. Ever since the state took control of the bankrupt school system five years ago, city officials--in particular Mayor Omar Bradley--have offered scorching opposition to the takeover. State officials, in return, have accused Bradley and others of being more interested in scoring political points than in improving students' welfare.

The very progress report that Assemblyman Carl Washington hoped would speed Compton Unified School District's return to local control instead projects a long road ahead. The document, released Monday by a team of outside reviewers, indicates that there has been improvement but much remains to be done before the district is ready to take over from state administrators who have been in charge since 1993.

California's top education official toured the cash-starved Compton Unified School District on Wednesday, promising to repair aging buildings, provide new books and join with parents and civic groups to promote safety. State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin visited one elementary school and two high schools in the district, which fell into state receivership in 1993 with a $20-million debt and a record of poor test scores.

Gov. Pete Wilson signed a bill Wednesday that requires a fiscal crisis team to develop new recovery plans for the troubled Compton school district, which has been in a state of receivership since it nearly went bankrupt four years ago. AB 52 appropriates $500,000 for the team to study and recommend improvements in the district's academic programs, finances and facilities.

The academically struggling Compton Unified School District, which barely avoided a state takeover this week, is facing another assault from its most persistent critic and an unanticipated financial crisis. Compton Unified escaped the takeover when Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have authorized state control on the grounds that the school system is failing to educate its students properly. Assemblyman Willard H. Murray Jr.

In the 3 1/2 years since the state Department of Education took control of the debt-saddled Compton school district, many buildings have fallen deeper into decay and disrepair: Leaky roofs sometimes drive students and teachers out of their classrooms. Broken windows are left unrepaired for months, leaving textbooks and school materials exposed to the elements and vandals. Most classrooms have no heating or air conditioning, forcing students to endure cold or sweltering temperatures.

School board members have voted to seek an emergency state loan to ease a financial crisis that has left the Compton Unified School District unable to meet its May and June payroll. County analysts have estimated that the Compton school system will need to borrow as much as $18.4 million to stay afloat for the next 18 months. If a bailout of that size is approved, then state education officials must, by law, appoint an administrator to run the school system for one to 10 years.

Political cronyism and mismanagement have sent the Compton Unified School District into an academic and financial tailspin in which the desires of adults running its schools have regularly taken precedence over the needs of students, a county report concluded Tuesday. In a harshly worded document that marked the latest in a long series of blows to the district, the Los Angeles County Office of Education said the Compton school system is crippled by a lack of leadership.

After years of bitter fighting over control of Compton's schools, officials from the city and the state Department of Education are trying to hammer out a detente. Ever since the state took control of the bankrupt school system five years ago, city officials--in particular Mayor Omar Bradley--have offered scorching opposition to the takeover. State officials, in return, have accused Bradley and others of being more interested in scoring political points than in improving students' welfare.

When Randolph Ward arrives at his job running the Compton schools, he comes with a bodyguard who picks him up every morning and drives him home at night. The bodyguard, a beefy man from a special California Highway Patrol division in charge of protecting state officials, sits patiently outside Ward's modest office and accompanies him on all school business.

The California Community Foundation, which began a $1-million fund-raising drive to ease school textbook shortages after a Times examination of the problem, has raised more than $300,000 in the last month. On Thursday, the nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in Los Angeles wrote its first $25,000 check to the Compton Unified School District.

The state administrator of Compton schools will ask the district's advisory board tonight to support a $107-million bond measure for campus repairs and renovations on the April 1998 ballot. "This is the big step," said district spokeswoman Vivian Hao. "Up to now it has been a proposal." Compton High is more than 100 years old and many of the district's 38 campuses are more 80 years old, said Hao. A task force of parents, teachers and principals has outlined the most-needed repairs, she said.

Compton Unified School District officials said Thursday that they will conduct a poll to determine if there is public support for a school bond measure to repair long-neglected school buildings. "The physical conditions of many Compton schools are horrible," said state administrator Randolph E. Ward, who has led the struggling district for the last 11 months. "Decades of neglect, coupled with inadequate funding for repairs and renovations, have taken their toll," Ward said.

Gov. Pete Wilson signed a bill Wednesday that requires a fiscal crisis team to develop new recovery plans for the troubled Compton school district, which has been in a state of receivership since it nearly went bankrupt four years ago. AB 52 appropriates $500,000 for the team to study and recommend improvements in the district's academic programs, finances and facilities.

A state-appointed administrator has decided to lay off about 40 teachers and cut administrators' salaries by 7% to keep the Compton Unified School District afloat financially. "Very painful changes have to take place and the pain has to get started," interim Administrator Stan Oswalt said Thursday. Oswalt said he must also cut the pay of teachers and other employees by as much as 7%. Negotiations are under way with unions representing these employees.

When Randolph Ward arrives at his job running the Compton schools, he comes with a bodyguard who picks him up every morning and drives him home at night. The bodyguard, a beefy man from a special California Highway Patrol division in charge of protecting state officials, sits patiently outside Ward's modest office and accompanies him on all school business.

A handful of Compton school trustees who were stripped of their power and perquisites when state officials took over the debt-ridden school district in 1993 went to court Monday in a bid to oust the state's administrators and retake the reins. Lawyers for the trustees charged that the district was unconstitutionally seized. They contended that the district has now met state benchmarks for progress, and demanded that the 28,000-student school system be returned to local authority.

As calls from parents outraged over the decay of Compton's public schools poured into City Hall on Monday, Mayor Omar Bradley said he would prod the City Council to issue at least $200 million in bonds to replace one of the city's dilapidated high schools and repair dozens of others.