A Quiz for the Burbank School Board : Questions About Keiko Hentell’s Dismissal Still Linger, and They Center on Race

The matter of Keiko Hentell’s removal as principal of Burbank High School is naggingly incomplete. Charges of racism hang in the air, and major questions have not been answered.

Demoted in February, Hentell is now writing grant proposals in the district’s central office. She says the reasons for her removal have not been explained to her. The school board has refused to discuss them publicly, saying it is a personnel matter. But this case is about more than one job.

When Hentell moved to the Burbank job from L.A. schools in 1991, she joined a district whose white enrollment had dropped from 85% to just over 50% in 20 years. She launched a year of innovations designed to embrace the new diversity, having decided that the school had shortchanged its minority students.

Hentell held off-campus meetings with these students and their parents. She supported highly visible activities, including clubs for Latino and African American students.

Hentell and her supporters believe this and similar work caused her removal. The Japanese American Citizens League, for instance, rushed to Hentell’s defense: “At best the school board can be seen as having a lack of sensitivity to ethnic community concerns and at worst can be accused of prejudice and racism.”

We are left with questions and concerns:

* Did Hentell’s efforts for minority pupils lead to strained relations with her bosses, and is that behind the chief complaints in her formal evaluations?

* The bosses warned her quite early that she was making waves. But copies of the evaluations of her work, obtained by The Times, do not specify problems in detail or warn her to solve them or face demotion.

After one year, Supt. Arthur Pierce complimented her for reaching out to minority students. But he said some teachers, board members and Burbank citizens were “concerned that the traditional population served by Burbank High School is being overlooked.” The language is vague.

Most importantly, the school board is annoyingly vague on what ought to be happening at Burbank High School. Grant that it cannot talk about Hentell; it can and should talk about the larger issues, and soon.

Burbank, like all of Southern California, has changed and continues to change. How should schools cope? Does equal opportunity require special efforts with minority students? Are in-school ethnic groups to be supported? Is the board out of touch with its city? Is it trying to “save” Burbank High for a dwindling number of white pupils?

Making Hentell disappear will not make these questions disappear. They will chafe till they are aired.