Rosalio F. Munoz, 91; Leading Latino Educator, L.A. District Official

Rosalio F. Munoz, a pioneering Mexican American educator who was one of the highest-ranking Latino administrators in the Los Angeles Unified School District when he retired in the 1970s, died of natural causes May 20 at his Highland Park home. He was 91.

During a 26-year career with the district, Munoz used the principles of modern social work to change the way educators dealt with truancy and other problems.

“As a social worker he took us away from the attitude of the hooky cop or truant officer. We tried to be helpful rather than just punitive,” said Naomi Howard, a former attendance counselor who knew Munoz in the 1970s, when he was the district’s director of pupil services.

Munoz left his native Mexico in 1918 and moved with his family to Texas. He was schooled at home until he was 10 because Mexican immigrants were barred from public schools.

He went on to become the first Mexican American to earn a master’s degree in education from Arizona State Teachers College (now Arizona State University), in 1938.

In college he helped organize Los Conquistadores, a club for Spanish-speaking students that was dedicated to improving relations between Latinos and other students and increasing the numbers of Latinos in higher education.

He worked as a principal in Arizona and served in the Navy during World War II before earning a master’s degree in social work from USC in 1949.

The next year he joined the Los Angeles school district as a social worker assigned to help truant students stay in school. In 1958, he received a doctorate in educational psychology from USC, becoming one of the first Mexican Americans in the nation to earn a doctoral degree, and worked his way up to a supervisory position overseeing child welfare and attendance in the district’s San Fernando Valley schools.

He retired in 1976 as director of the district’s pupil services branch, which handles attendance issues and other problems related to student welfare. He taught courses in social work and education at USC and the Cal State campuses at Northridge and Los Angeles.

Friends of School Mental Health Services, an organization of pupil services workers, named an annual award for Munoz that is given to an outstanding district employee.

Munoz is survived by his wife of 63 years, Maria; daughters Margaret Orona, Maria Rosalia Wartnik and Elvira Munoz Geoghegan; sons Rosalio, Carlos and Ricardo; a sister, Josephine Rodriguez; 13 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Memorial donations may be sent to the Rosalio F. Munoz Scholarship Fund, School of Social Work, USC, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90007.