"We want equal rights for everybody," said Ezequiel Ruedas, a sophomore at Corona High School whose mother filed a federal civil rights complaint last August.
That complaint, along with three others filed by Latino families sparked an outside investigation by Corona-Norco schools. And they have raised questions about the racial makeup and cultural sensitivity of school employees.
"I think what we have is an increasing problem we have to address," said school board member Bill Hedrick, who noted that the district's staff diversity may not have kept pace with the rising minority student population.
Norma Alvarado, a Norco High parent who filed a complaint, said more diversity could help reverse the problems.
"They need to get more Chicanos and Chicanas in there as teachers and in administration," Alvarado said. "Make it all equal."
For the first time in recent memory, Corona-Norco administrators have hired attorneys to look into parent complaints. They have promised diversity workshops for students and staff and might seek ways to improve Hispanics' test scores. Above all, they want to know if employees broke policy by discriminating against Latinos.
"I think we have a great teaching staff and a great administrative staff," Assistant Superintendent Tom Pike said. "If there are difficulties, then we certainly want to be made aware of that."
Beginning Monday, attorneys will meet privately at district headquarters with anyone wishing to complain of discrimination. The lawyers' findings, along with recommendations for the district, are due at the end of February. Pike said the report will go to the school board and should be public.
Superintendent Pedro Garcia said he did not want district officials investigating "so nobody can come back and say it's rigged."
But the Mexican Political Association, which helped the families file complaints, has urged parents to stay away from the attorneys. By Friday evening, no one had set up an appointment.
Maria Gonzalez, chairwoman of MPA's Chino-Ontario chapter, said a law firm paid by the district may lean toward making positive findings. She looks to the U. S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights for an impartial investigation.
The problems go beyond Corona-Norco, students and experts say. Some Latino students across the Inland area say discrimination lives on campuses. In recent years, others have turned to federal civil rights officials with complaints.
Last week, Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante called for training in diversity and tolerance for all of California's students as part of his commission to fight prejudice. Thomas Saenz, regional counsel for the national Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called such concerns "unfortunately . . . very common" in the state and nation.
When the number of minority students climbs -- and teaching staffs remain mostly white -- problems often arise, Saenz said. Sometimes, staff members have stereotypes of minority students that can lead to unfair treatment, he said.
"They may be subconsciously or otherwise affected by a view that minorities are gang members and predisposed to violence or are troublemakers," Saenz said. "Just because ou're making discipline decisions doesn't mean you're immune from that."
Some Inland area Latino students said they have had no similar problems. Others say they have. School officials interviewed for this story insist that they don't base discipline on skin color.
"If I'm going to target baggy pants, I'm going to target baggy pants for reasons of safety, not race," said Bryan Malloy, principal of Kaiser High School in Fontana.
In Corona-Norco, officials don't log complaints made at the district level by ethnicity because the law does not require it, Pike said.
In 1998-99, Latinos accounted for 52 percent of the suspensions at Corona High, compared to 36 percent for white students. At Norco High, white students had 63 percent of the suspensions. Latinos comprised 25 percent of the suspensions.
As for expulsions, all eight students expelled last school year from Norco High were white. Corona High's 11 expulsions broke down to four Latinos, four whites, two blacks and one Asian.
Sharon Stanton, Corona-Norco's director of pupil personnel, said state law spells out offenses for which students can be suspended and expelled, giving administrators little leeway.
Officials aren't happy when data shows more minorities being punished and will try to pinpoint the causes, Stanton said. Discrimination, she said, is not one of the reasons.
At Bloomington High School, teacher Lisa Padilla hasn't heard student discrimination complaints.
"I think the statistics show that happens in general in society, but I have never seen that to be true at our school," Padilla said.
Marino Mendoza, a Kaiser High freshman, agrees. "Teachers are fair. The principal is cool. No one even talks about skin," he said.
Others can identify with the complaints of the Corona-Norco Hispanic families. Carlita Munoza, who dropped out of March Mountain High School in Moreno Valley, remembers experiencing harassment on campus.
"The teachers and security looked at what we were doing more because we were Hispanic," said Munoza, 17. "We couldn't just laugh without being asked questions."
In Corona-Norco, Ezequiel's mother, Martha Gomez, other parents and dozens of students from Corona and Norco high schools took complaints to the Corona-Norco school board several times. Joining Gomez and Alvarado in filing complaints are Norco High parents Marina Morales and Carlos Gonzales.
In interviews and in the complaints, students said school employees watch them suspiciously for walking in groups, while groups of white students stroll across campus without a problem.
Corona High student Jose Gutierrez said Latinos walking in a group always seem to catch administrators' eyes. "They only pick on me and my friends because we're Mexican," Jose said.
Latinos said they often receive longer suspensions than white students involved in the same fight. For example, Morales says her son Ricky got a five-day suspension after a fight, while a white student got two or three days.
They say Hispanics get punished for dress code violations for baggy clothes and baseball caps -- the latter banned inside buildings -- while white students freely wear these items.
The four civil rights complaints filed detail specific allegations, including:
Meanwhile, the families await word from federal education officials. Melinda Ulloa, spokeswoman for the U. S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, said her "department can neither confirm nor deny" the existence of a complaint or discuss its status.
MALDEF's Saenz said diversity training will help, but won't solve the problems. A more diverse staff will be needed. More importantly, Saenz said schools need "leadership that makes clear bias will not be tolerated."
Staff writers Monique H. Henderson, Jennifer Perez and James Nash contributed to this report.
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