District Will Try to Defuse Tensions After School Attack

Los Angeles school officials sought Friday to mend frayed relations at a San Fernando Valley elementary school by arranging for outside mediators to help teachers, parents and administrators work out their differences.

The mediation is meant to calm unrest that boiled over after the school’s principal reported being beaten Monday morning in the campus parking lot by two men who said they did not want a white administrator at the mostly Latino campus.

The city Human Relations Commission was expected to open discussions Monday at Burton Street Elementary School in Panorama City.

A 12-member campus committee was being selected to help organize the effort, which will also involve a nonprofit dispute resolution group called Days of Dialogue.

“We need to provide the school with some kind of forum in which they can be healed,” said Socorro Serrano, a Los Angeles school spokeswoman.

More than 25 of Burton Street’s 41 instructors held a news conference Friday outside the school to declare their support for Norman Bernstein, whom they referred to as “our beloved principal.”

The teachers said an underground effort of five or six parents had stirred tensions at the otherwise tranquil campus where Bernstein, a 40-year Los Angeles district veteran, has served as principal for seven years.

“There has never been an atmosphere of dissension at Burton,” said Bonnie Tompkins, a third- and fourth-grade teacher and the school’s union representative. “We are a school that is cohesive. Our job is to take care of the children and teach.”

But two parents involved in an effort to oust Bernstein said the campaign will continue. They said the assault on Bernstein was unrelated to any effort to remove him.

The two parents, who declined to give their names, said they represented a majority of parents who want the principal removed because he is unresponsive and fails to properly oversee his staff. “We’re going to keep going, step by step, to get rid of him,” one parent said. “This is not going to change our mind.”

The unrest at Burton Street surfaced nearly a year ago when several parents were angered that Bernstein supported a district plan to place the school on a year-round schedule. The switch was mandated by the Board of Education to relieve overcrowding at a nearby elementary school.

Parents also accused Bernstein and his staff of not giving adequate information about waivers that would allow children to remain in bilingual classes when Proposition 227 took effect in July.

Despite the complaint, the school has the highest number of waivers--200 out of 400 English learners--in the area.

Other issues have surfaced as well, including an allegation by parents that Burton Street staff members have referred to them as “illegals,” an allegation that the school denies.

The two parents interviewed Friday said Bernstein’s race--and his inability to speak Spanish--has played no role in their campaign. But letters sent by parents to the district in November suggest otherwise.

“Mr. Bernstein is not bilingual, therefore, he is unable to communicate effectively with many of us,” the parents wrote.

Bernstein was recuperating Friday at home in Burbank. He said he plans to return to work in a few weeks.

Police are continuing their investigation of Bernstein’s reported assault, but said they have no witnesses or suspects.

Back at school, teachers said they were maintaining a normal schedule and that classes continued as usual despite a small army of reporters and news crews hovering outside the front gate.

“We have had an appalling week,” Tompkins said, adding that teachers are committed to resolving the lingering problems.

“We will work with the parents,” she said. “We will do our best to get this school on an even keel.”

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Times staff writers Louis Sahagun and Miguel Bustillo contributed to this story.