‘Children Come First,’ New Schools Chief Says : McKenna Arouses High Hopes in Inglewood

New Inglewood school Supt. George McKenna has a powerful speaking style that avoids the stilted jargon favored by some school administrators.

Inglewood Unified School District employees and residents, who cheered McKenna as he signed a contract Tuesday, are hoping he will bring refreshing changes along with refreshing words.

“The higher you go in the bureaucracy, the deeper your commitment to serve,” the acclaimed former principal of Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles told school employees and others at a reception Tuesday. “The children come first. There is nothing defective about our children. Poverty is not an obstacle if you have good teachers.”

In quiet but impassioned tones, McKenna promised to work for fiscal solvency, effective schools and better conditions for the district’s Latino population. The mostly black and Latino district has been plagued by political infighting and fiscal crises in recent years.

‘Rescue’ Mission

McKenna also spoke of the importance of his mission and that of all public educators attempting to keep minority youth out of the cycle of gangs, drugs and despair.

“We have to focus on rescuing the young men of our community,” McKenna said. “Our young men don’t need to draw lines in the dirt and fight over territory they do not own, lease, or pay taxes on. Our females are at risk because of our young men. If our females are at risk, our families are at risk, and America is in danger.”

McKenna, 48, will assume the Inglewood superintendency Oct. 1. He signed a contract through the 1990-91 school year that will pay $80,000 annually plus a $250 monthly car allowance. A clear favorite for the job since former Supt. Rex Fortune resigned July 1, McKenna was offered the post last week after board members and a community committee interviewed nine finalists.

In 10 years at Washington, McKenna built a reputation as a driven, tough but compassionate principal who turned an inner-city high school into a college preparatory institution stressing discipline and hard work. His success in reducing the school’s dropout rate and increasing the number of students graduating and going to college brought recognition from Washington to Hollywood: His experiences have been praised by President Reagan and dramatized in a 1986 television movie.

Though McKenna’s reception in Inglewood was upbeat, many say his task matches his reputation. He will head a 15,000-student district that has endured more than $3 million in budget cuts this year and faculty-administration conflicts that caused a 1987 teachers’ walkout. He will be working with a tumultuous school board whose members have browbeaten administrators, fought publicly among themselves and pushed to have political allies installed in school jobs.

He also faces questions about his lack of experience as a superintendent and his ability to deal with the powerful Inglewood Teachers Assn., whose president noted with concern last week that McKenna’s demands on teachers at Washington led to run-ins with the teachers’ union there.

McKenna answered such questions Tuesday with confidence and humor. He said he plans to submit a statement of specific goals to the school board soon. He also said his primary focus will be on individual schools.

“Having been a principal, that’s my bias,” he said. “We need the strongest possible people as school-site leaders.”

As for his never having been a superintendent, McKenna responded that many superintendents have never been principals--a greater weakness, he said, than his lack of top-level administrative experience.

McKenna was first offered the Inglewood superintendency in 1985, when a three-member board majority aligned with Mayor Edward Vincent abruptly fired Fortune, then rehired him after a community uproar. Fortune charged that the board fired him because he refused to appoint a friend of the mayor’s to an administrative post. Vincent and the board members denied the charge.

McKenna said he declined the 1985 offer because he had no wish to replace a sitting superintendent. He said the school board and the city’s political climate are different now. Only one of the current board members, Caroline Coleman, was in office in 1985.

But many employees and community leaders say McKenna’s greatest challenge will be in maintaining rapport with a board that is still highly political and divided, though board members are unanimous in their support of him. They said the real test of McKenna’s strength will come if he attempts to remove or demote employees with political connections to board members or city leaders.

“That’s when it’s going to hit the fan,” said one administrator, who asked not to be named.

McKenna said he had not discussed political matters with board members. Board member Lois Hill-Hale drew cheers when she told the crowd at Tuesday’s reception: “All of us are going to cooperate with him. We’re going to stay out of those schools and let him do the job.”

Another issue McKenna emphasized is inclusion of the district’s growing Latino population. Although Latinos number 40% of the student body and could soon be the district’s largest ethnic group, there are no high-ranking Latino district administrators. Both Latino and black employees say the district does not do enough to include Latino residents in district affairs or to serve Latino students.

McKenna called for affirmative-action efforts to hire Latinos as principals and “cabinet-level” administrators.