LAWNDALE

When Guin and I decided it was best to leave Corona I began to send job applications to various school districts where there were vacancies. One of the first was Independence in Owens Valley and they needed a Superintendent who would serve as High School and Adult Education Principal as well as administrator of an elementary school in Death Valley about one hundred miles away. I told the Board Members there that I thought they should hire someone else. Carol and I enjoyed the trip and we met some very nice people but the job was not one that would allow a person to do more than work hard and try to survive.

I also applied at Ventura Elementary for a job as Business Manager. I was amazed to find the Superintendent afraid to hire an assistant who came from a Unified District. I found the same situation at Glendora Elementary. In other words, I was over qualified in the eyes of the Superintendents and they were uneasy with an assistant who had a record of successful experience in a wide range of areas.

Finally in March 1953 I got a call from Lloyd Nelson at the University of Southern California. Lloyd was a Texan who had earned his Doctorate at Stanford at the age of twenty two and was now specializing in School Business Administration at USC. I had become acquainted with him at California Teachers Headquarters when I was on the Teacher's Salary Committee at Corona. He told me there was a Business Manager's job open at Lawndale in Los Angeles County and that the district was in a real mess. They had just fired their Superintendent. They had no coordinated record system and needed a complete "Overhaul" from stem to stern. He knew that I had completely "rebuilt" the Corona system and he felt that I could do well in Lawndale. I had my confidential file sent from Claremont College to Lawndale and called there to schedule an appointment for an interview. The interview was set up for an evening so Guin and I drove to the district which is located a few miles south of the Los Angeles International Airport.

There were two candidates to be interviewed that day and I was called in first. I immediately liked the Superintendent, Cliff Riddlebarger. The three Board Members were easy to talk with and we had an informal conversation about the trials and tribulations of school districts. When we finally ran down, Hobson Denmark, Board President said, "You are the man we want. We have one more candidate to interview but it wont take long. Please wait and then we will discuss the details of your employment." When I looked at the Superintendent he nodded his head and so I went out and Guin and I waited a little while and came back in to work out the details of our contract.

We moved to a small rental house in Manhattan Beach and Carol enrolled in school in that district. She was no longer a target because her father was a district administrator. It helped her.

The Lawndale School District was very "poor" which means that there was very little local property to tax for the support of services. Virtually all the taxable wealth consisted of residential