As usual, there’s trouble in Compton. But this time, it’s the kind of trouble that is race-based, insidious and sweeping the state to the point that African-American educators have had to band together to save their lives.

I’m talking about an assault on Black educators, especially on African-American superintendents of school districts, which started 25 years ago with the ouster of Charlie Mae Knight from the Lynwood School District and continued with the removal of Kaye Burnside from the Compton Unified School District last month.

Between those two, increasing numbers of Black heads of school districts have been shown the door for all kinds of non and/or nebulous reasons. They include Adm. David Brewer III, Los Angeles; Rex Fortune, Lynwood; Pamela Short-Powell, Inglewood; Edna Herring, Rialto; Ernesto Martinez Johnson, West Fresno; Gary McKnight, Mt. Diablo near San Francisco and several others in smaller districts.

The problem has become so acute that the National Alliance of Black School Educators and the California Assn. of African-American Superintendents and Administrators are fighting back to preserve the dignity, reputations and careers of African-Americans’ most prized, most intellectual, most revered professionals. These people hold doctorates. They stand on the pinnacle of Blackdom. And who keeps shoving them off? In most cases, their predominately Black school boards, that’s who.

Consider the trials and tribulations of Kaye Burnside, Ed.D., who is the current target of the seven-member all-black Compton School Board. Burnside was the deputy superintendent of the West Contra Costa Unified School District when she was selected to head the Compton District almost two-and-a-half years ago. Last month, the Compton School Board voted to put her on administrative leave because they said she violated the board’s policy forbidding the personal use of her school district-issued credit card.

Burnside said she was unaware of the board’s policy against such use as it had been used in the same manner as she did during the previous 26 years! This alleged board policy suddenly became enforceable two years after she arrived.

Furthermore, meticulously kept records show that Burnside’s credit card purchases for all things were extrapolated from the monthly billing documents by her secretary and the district fiscal staff and categorized into those purchases that were work-related and those that were personal. The school district paid the entire bills, but she wrote checks to the school district for the portions of her credit card bills deemed personal. This occurred every month and Burnside has not ever and does not now owe the Compton Unified School District a dime.

They’ve got her on leave without pay for nothing! And the leave is pending what outcome? Her five black sisters and two black brothers — one of whom is an obvious piece of work — are so mean that they threatened to call the district attorney on her. For what?! She stole no money; she committed no crime. All she did was violate a board policy which they knew was being violated long before she got there, and didn’t bother to tell her about when she arrived!

Not only is Burnside dealing with this debilitating assault upon her career, she is dealing with a personal problem you wouldn’t wish on these school board members: Her son, who was born with epilepsy, received a transplanted kidney on Easter Sunday and he’s fighting to survive tissue rejection. Has she received any compassion or understanding from her board of Black mamas? Naw. But she doesn’t really want any. She wants her name.

“I want the board to know that I am not going to stand by while they ruin my reputation,” Burnside said. “It is essential that I clear my name as I wish to continue to work, and most important, it is my family name and it has history and meaning.

“I know that they will probably not bring me back to work, but they cannot have my name, and thereby my future as it relates to working again,” Burnside continued. “I have to be in a position to help my son, and I sincerely believe that I am meant to do something great in education before I leave this earth. If they do not want me, I will go somewhere else, as there are plenty of Black, Brown and poor children needing someone to advocate and bring change on their behalf. People told me not to come here, but I came anyway. I thought this would be the place, as there is so much that needs to be done.”

(Next week: Compton School Board members Micah Ali, Fred Easter, Margie Garrett, Emma Sharif, Marjorie Shipp, Mae Thomas and Satra Zurita answer the question: “What is wrong with you?!!”)