Crenshaw High Parents Get Promise of Improvements

A week after Crenshaw High School was stripped of its accreditation for persistent educational failures, contrite officials promised improvements to hundreds of angry parents, assuring them that graduating seniors would be eligible to enroll in state universities.

About 900 people packed the community room on the south Los Angeles campus Monday night in a 2 1/2 -hour meeting that was at times raucous and tense.

Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer accepted responsibility for “a failure” by school and district administrators to improve Crenshaw and promised, “We are going to turn heaven and Earth and change this place.”

Earlier this month, the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges revoked Crenshaw’s accreditation after finding that school and district officials had failed to correct major shortcomings in teaching and school management. The problems were uncovered during a 2003 visit to the 3,100-student school.

Though not required by law, nearly all California public and private high schools seek the association’s stamp of approval. Schools typically receive three- or six-year accreditations.

The loss of accreditation at Crenshaw surprised and angered parents who feared that colleges and universities would dismiss applications from future Crenshaw graduates.

Romer told the crowd that he had received assurances from Charles Reed, chancellor of the California State University system, and Susan Wilbur, director of undergraduate admissions for the University of California campuses, that students who graduate from Crenshaw this spring will not be penalized.

“We will honor the fact that these students have worked hard throughout high school,” Wilbur told The Times, “and will review their applications along with all the others. We don’t want to penalize the students for something they couldn’t control.”

Wilbur made it clear, however, that she was making an exception for this year’s Crenshaw graduating class and that UC applicants typically are required to have a diploma from an accredited high school. If the school fails to regain its accreditation, she said, future graduates could be affected.

History teacher Alex Caputo-Pearl, a member of the parent-teacher group that organized Monday’s meeting, urged the district to reach out to private colleges, especially traditionally black institutions that receive applications from Crenshaw students, for similar assurances.

Romer said efforts were underway to improve Crenshaw, which once boasted above-average academics and renowned extracurricular programs but has faltered badly since the flight of middle-class families from the surrounding neighborhood.

Along with a principal and four assistant principals who were recently assigned to the school, an additional assistant principal and a testing coordinator will be hired to address the failures highlighted by the association, Romer said.

A counselor will be added to Crenshaw’s staff to address the high rate of student absences.

On Tuesday, officials said nearly $1 million has been spent over the last two years on textbooks and library books for the school, which has chronic supply shortages. At the meeting Monday night, parents were mistakenly told that more than $5 million had been spent on books.

District officials said they planned to appeal the association’s decision -- a move that would, in effect, reinstate the school’s accreditation until January, when the association would rule on the appeal. If the appeal fails, investigators would probably visit Crenshaw in February or March to consider its reapplication for accreditation, said David Brown, executive director of the association’s accrediting commission.

Frustration over the district’s failure to address the problems spelled out in the association’s 2003 report boiled over at Monday’s meeting, with parents loudly rebuking the officials as they tried to speak.

Some teachers and parents said they hoped that attention over accreditation would force the district to make changes.

Glenn E. Windom, whose son will begin the 10th grade next month, said, “I’m believing and hoping that the district will work with us