A former principal who was demoted from his post at a Westchester middle school for his handling of an alleged sexual assault between students on a school bus is waging a public relations war against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Kenneth Pride, former principal of Orville Wright Middle School, says the action taken against him was unjust and even smacks of racial discrimination.
Pride and a group of supporters held a press conference Tuesday in front of the school, where a line of speakers – including Pride himself – praised the reforms he brought to the school. He served as principal for about a year until November, and currently works as a roving teacher in the district.
Pride and his supporters held the press conference Tuesday because they say they’ve reached the end of the school year and still aren’t satisfied with LAUSD’s response to his request for an investigation. They blasted the LAUSD for meting out a punishment that they say is out of proportion with the alleged offense.
“It’s just appalling to see that Los Angeles Unified is trying to get rid of people who are doing the right thing,” said Denny Schneider of the Westchester Neighborhood Association, which is raising money for Pride’s legal defense.
Although the incident in May 2011 preceded the now-infamous allegations of sex-abuse at Miramonte Elementary School in LAUSD – where a teacher stands accused of molesting up to 23 students – Pride and his supporters believe the unwillingness of LAUSD leaders to budge on his case is at least partly the result of a political climate created by that event.
“People are running scared because of what happened at Miramonte,” Pride said Tuesday. “People say `sexual nature? Oh my God, head for the hills.”‘
Pride, who hired a public relations professional to get the word out to the media, said he was one of just 10 black principals in all of LAUSD’s secondary schools.
“I have been a victim of racial discrimination as an African-American principal,” he said. “I have seen a pattern of racial discrimination when it comes to retaining and mentoring African-American principals.”
LAUSD communications officials declined to talk about his specific case, citing personnel confidentiality laws. And LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer, who represents Westchester, did not return calls from the Daily Breeze on Tuesday. But Pride’s version of what happened is as follows:
The incident on the bus happened off campus in May 2011. According to Pride and other sources, an eighth-grade boy coerced a sixth-grade girl to perform oral sex.
Pride says he was told by district officials that employees, upon learning of an alleged sexual assault, must immediately notify either local law enforcement or the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
And yet, he says, although he was the fourth district employee to learn of the incident, he was the only one punished.
The bus driver, who Pride said witnessed the incident, did not report it. The driver’s boss, who learned of the assault from the parent of a witness, banned the student from the bus, but did not notify either the school’s administration or legal authorities.
Later that May, a teacher at the school noticed a commotion among the students in her classroom. They were passing around a girl’s journal. One entry mentioned the incident on the bus. The teacher brought the journal to Pride.
“I’m the fourth person in,” he said. “The journal did not have enough information for me to form a reasonable suspicion. … There was no name of a victim.”
He added that he immediately called the parent of a witness. She wasn’t home, but the parent soon emailed the teacher to confirm the rumor. The teacher forwarded the email to Pride.
“I turned it over to my assistant principal, and said `Let’s jump on this. It looks like it’s real,”‘ he said.
The assistant principal suspended the student, who was ultimately expelled.
“The district said because of this egregious nature, that I should not have delegated,” he said. “The district said I didn’t act fast enough, that I was derelict in my duties.”
He added that he received no complaints from either the parent of the victim or the parent of the alleged perpetrator.
Teachers and parents at Tuesday’s event credited Pride for making big improvements during the year he was there.
They say he landed a $50,000 grant, created a math-and-science weekend academy, restored a music department that had been cut, created a partnership with the YMCA to add swimming to the P.E. curriculum and started an academic decathlon team.
They also credit him for attracting back many of the affluent, white families in the neighborhood that had fled years ago in response to legally required integration through busing.
“People in this community began to see Orville Wright as an option for their children,” said Nicole King, a parent whose grown children and grandson attended the school. “It was not that type of school when my older children were here.”
But according to the California Department of Education, the proportion of white students in the school has actually held fairly steady, around 13 percent, from 2008-09 through this school year.
Pride’s supporters maintain the school has lost as many as 400 students since he left.
The school’s API scores dipped from 2010 to 2011, from 755 to 736. The 2012 scores will come out in August.
Reached at school, Wright’s interim principal – whose last day was Tuesday – had kind words for Pride.
Susan Allen came out of retirement to help out at the school as an assistant principal. She worked with Pride for a few months but then became interim principal when he was demoted.
“I have nothing but admiration and respect for him,” Allen said. “It was very hard on the school when he left.”
But she refrained from commenting on the actual incident, saying it occurred before she came to the campus.
Tuesday’s event coincided with the last day of school, and many students streaming out of the building stopped by to hug their former principal.
“Why did you leave?” asked a girl as Pride hugged about four students at once.
“Why did I leave?” he asked. “Because someone told me I had to.”
Follow Rob Kuznia on Twitter at http://twitter.com/robkuznia
