Acting Chief to Get Top Schools Job, Sources Say : Education: The L.A. board reportedly will appoint Sid Thompson superintendent. He’ll be the first African-American to hold the post.

The Los Angeles Board of Education is preparing to appoint Supt. Sid Thompson its permanent chief, avoiding a potentially divisive and difficult national search for a leader during a period of unprecedented crises, sources said Friday.

The board intends early next week to work out final details of what is expected to be a two-year contract for Thompson to take the helm of the nation’s second-largest school district. He is the district’s first African-American superintendent.

Thompson, a respected and affable 37-year district veteran, will be charged with guiding the district as it embarks on a major reform effort while fending off a drive to break it up. He must also steer the district through another round of painful budget cuts, which may include layoffs and increases in class size.

Thompson said he has made it clear to the board since his temporary appointment in October that he wants the job permanently, but he said Friday that he has not been formally notified of the board’s decision.

“They haven’t told me no, so I am hopeful,” Thompson, 62, said. “I am expecting it.”

Thompson said he asked for a two-year contract, believing that to be a fair amount of time for the board to evaluate his effectiveness and for him to decide whether he wants to remain in the high-pressure post. He earns $140,000 a year.

The board’s expected actions come as a coalition of Latino education organizations, which waged an intense public campaign for the appointment of a Latino to the interim post, acknowledged in a statement that “there is no real chance for a national search with the current composition of the school board.”

The coalition was able to garner the support of many elected Latino officials and lobbied board members to appoint Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias to the top post, left vacant by the sudden resignation of Bill Anton. The Latino campaign increased tensions with African-American educators, who supported Thompson.

Latino students make up 65% of the district’s enrollment and are among its neediest students; many of them become dropouts and lack strong English skills. Many are the children of recent immigrants, who Latino leaders say have been unfairly shut out of their children’s education by insensitive school administrators and district policies.

Despite the protests, the board voted 5 to 2 last fall to appoint Thompson to the interim post until June 30, saying that as second in command he could immediately take the reins of the mammoth district. School board President Leticia Quezada and board member Julie Korenstein dissented.

Joe Flores, head of the Mexican-American Education Commission, said he still believes “it would be best for the district to have a bilingual, bicultural superintendent,” but that Latino groups are willing to support and work with Thompson.

Flores and others said attention to Latino education issues--such as accountability for student achievement, parent empowerment and increased hiring of Latino teachers--are more important than waging what they said would be an unsuccessful drive to persuade the board to hire a Latino superintendent.

District and Latino coalition officials said their decision to back Thompson came after a series of private meetings with Thompson and several board members, including Quezada, the only Latino now on the board.

They said they were also influenced by the election of Victoria Castro, who will be the second Latina on the school board when she takes office July 1.

“Vickie is our new second wind,” Flores said. “We really see a breakthrough with her election. She is good for the community and good for our kids.”

Her election caps a hard-fought reapportionment battle that carved out a primarily Latino school district seat stretching from Huntington Park to the Pico-Union district.

Thompson’s main strength, which is the ability to build consensus among diverse and at times warring groups, is the quality needed most in a superintendent at this time, district sources and others said. He also has been committed to fundamental restructuring of the district through the LEARN plan adopted by the board, which outlines a five-year effort to decentralize the system.

“I think to me the most important thing for the next superintendent is to be able to get a system this large and with this many players to buy into a new vision for how the system ought to operate,” school board member Mark Slavkin said. “But I don’t think one person can do this and historically there has been a failure in this district to empower very many people to make decisions.”

Board member Warren Furutani said “stability and continuity are the key” issues that have guided his decision to support Thompson, whom he called a “very frank and candid communicator.”

The heads of the teachers and administrators unions described Thompson as an honest man whose background as a classroom teacher and high school principal give him a keen understanding of education issues.

However, they also expressed doubt over whether the school board will give him the independence to control the day-to-day operations of the district.

“I think he is a strong leader but he certainly has to mitigate his leadership skills in dealing with the board,” said Eli Brent, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles. “They second-guess him all the way down the line. If they don’t like what he is doing, they call in Willie Brown,” he said referring to the board move to ask the Assembly Speaker to settle the teachers contract dispute.

In the last six months, Thompson has spent the majority of his time in negotiations over the contract, which is set to be approved by the school board Monday.