School Official Hired Without Discussion : Education: The Lynwood district board says it approved a new superintendent without discussing the job with the appointee or among themselves.

LYNWOOD —  Members of the Lynwood Unified School District board said they hired a new superintendent last week without discussing the job with her and without consulting each other before voting.

In fact, board member Richard Armstrong, who proposed last week that interim Supt. Audrey Clarke be hired permanently, said he was surprised when a majority of the five board members concurred.

The board last week voted 3 to 1 to hire Clarke, abandoning previous plans to conduct a nationwide search to replace Supt. LaVoneia Steele, who resigned under pressure in January. Board members then asked their attorney to work out details of a contract for the new superintendent.

The board’s abrupt decision has drawn criticism from residents and some board members. Member Rachel Chavez said: “It’s unbelievable that five somewhat rational beings can get together and things go crazy sometimes.”

Chavez abstained from voting, but under board rules, her abstention was counted as a vote in favor of hiring Clarke. “I didn’t want to vote no because I think Audrey Clarke has done a great job as interim superintendent. But I wasn’t ready to vote yes.”

Board member Thelma Williams, who left the room after Armstrong proposed hiring Clarke, said she has received 10 telephone calls from parents and other citizens who expressed concern about the manner in which the board reached its decision.

“This is wild, this is comical,” Williams said. “Everyone is in shock. If we had gone through with the process and Audrey had been selected, I would feel a lot better.”

Armstrong and board President Joe T. Battle voted for Clarke. Willard Hawn Reed voted against the proposal.

Armstrong said he proposed hiring Clarke because she has done “a very capable job” as interim superintendent, and spending $10,000 to $15,000 for a search would be wasting money. “I think she’ll be as good as anybody we could get (from a search),” he said.

He said the district “could have fallen apart” after the board forced Steele to resign, but Clarke “held things together” as interim superintendent. He also pointed out that she is bilingual, an asset in a district with a 74% Latino enrollment, and that she has worked hard to make sure the overcrowded district complies with state limits on class sizes.

The district was fined by the state last year for consistently violating state class-size limits in elementary schools.

Armstrong added, however, that he was surprised that the board approved his proposal to hire Clarke as superintendent. He said he had decided to raise the issue at the March 26 board meeting because the nationwide search plan was on the agenda for further discussion.

Clarke, 53, said after the board meeting that she also was surprised by the board’s decision. “Some might object to the process,” she said. “Maybe some might object to me, but I’m not in the job to win a popularity contest. I want respect for being able to do the job. My overall goal is to focus on our students by getting a quality education program for them.”

Most critics said they were concerned over the selection process, rather than with Clarke.

Board member Reed said his vote against Clarke “was nothing personal. I just thought we should have conducted a search.”

Matilde Zapien, a spokeswoman for Lynwood parents who oppose year-round schools, said: “Parents like Dr. Clarke but wanted to see a wide-open search. We’re disappointed.”

Community activist Cynthia Green-Geter said Clarke “is a very competent person, and everybody loves her.” But Green-Geter said the board’s decision “is disheartening. The fair thing for everybody would have been to make a nationwide search. The board keeps doing the same type of thing. It’s crazy.”

Green-Geter, an unsuccessful school board candidate in November, is the vice president of the Lynwood Parent-Teacher Assn.

The board’s move to oust Steele in January also apparently caught some members by surprise. Three members--Battle, Williams and Reed--voted to buy up the remainder of Steele’s three-year contract for $195,000. Armstrong and Chavez, who voted against the action, said they had not been informed of the majority’s plans.

The board majority said at the time that they had lost confidence in Steele’s ability to administer the troubled 15,000-student district.

BACKGROUND The Lynwood School District’s new superintendent, Audrey Clarke, had been serving as interim superintendent since Feb. 13. She succeeds LaVoneia Steele, who resigned Jan. 29. School board members, saying that they had lost confidence in Steele’s ability to run the troubled system, voted to spend $195,000 to buy up the remainder of Steele’s three-year contract. Clarke joined the district in 1977 as an assistant high school principal.