The Guy in the Skirt : Education: Fiji native Dhyan Lal, principal at Carson High, wears a <i> lava lava </i> once a week to display his ethnic pride. It’s just one of his unconventional, and successful, methods.

Dhyan Lal heralded a new era at Carson High School last summer by baring his soles. It was his first visit to the school as its new principal, a surprise stop at the front office made memorable not so much by what he said, but by what he wore--and what he didn’t wear.

Lal was barefoot, clad only in shorts and a flowered shirt. He even adopted a phony accent.

“I wanted to see how the front office would treat anyone coming in off the street,” Lal explained. They passed the test, but they quickly recognized him.

After school started in September, the Fiji-born Lal traded in his shorts for a traditional lava lava , a skirt-like garment favored among Pacific Islanders. He wears the outfit, with sandals, once a week in a display of his own ethnic pride.

At first a curiosity, Lal is now being hailed as an inspiring, if a bit unconventional, principal. After almost a full school year on the job, his approach is widely credited by parents, pupils and other staff members for helping transform athletic powerhouse Carson into an academic success as well.

The school that Lal took over had long been rife with gang and attendance problems. Vandals routinely sprayed the campus with graffiti and trashed the school’s greenhouse. Academically, the school was also said to be lacking in the year prior to Lal’s arrival.

This year, however, the school won five academic decathlon awards in Los Angeles Unified School District competition. Carson’s average daily attendance rate has improved by more than 100 students a day under Lal’s administration, and even the greenhouse, renovated by Roger Neal’s horticulture class, has been left untouched this year.

“The school has turned 180 degrees for the better,” said William Moore, a parent volunteer. “(Lal) and his staff have dedicated themselves to educating the children of this community.”

Lal’s success is attributed to the rapport he has built with students, instilling in them new confidence in their abilities and a desire to excel. They have nicknamed him “Doc” or “D-Loc”--street-wise references to Lal’s doctorate in educational administration. (He also holds two master’s degrees.)

Lal easily converses in the street slang favored by students. When he strolls through the hallways, he is often approached for a hug or words of encouragement.

“He talks to us,” said Tawanna Harrison, a senior. “We’re his first priority.”

Moore said his daughter, an 11th-grader, corrected her academic and attendance problems largely because of Lal’s efforts.

“She went from ditching school one to three days a week to coming even on days when she’s sick,” Moore said. “Her whole life has changed. Her grades, everything.”

And while many area schools have grappled with racial tensions, Carson recently celebrated its multicultural festivities without incident. About 2,100 students from varied ethnic and economic backgrounds attend the school, including members from 12 rival gangs.

As an example of the hands-on approach that Lal takes, he has met with Samoan church leaders and chiefs to settle discipline and academic problems among Samoan students. That tactic has endeared him to parents and students, who appreciate his understanding of Samoan culture.

The Rev. Elder Elia Taase, minister of Carson’s United Samoan Church, said Lal has become a father figure to the students.

“He’s given them hope for the future,” said Taase, whose son attends the school. “Where before they seemed to have been lost, there is now someone they can talk to. I am personally very thankful to have someone like him.”

Lal, 44, said he is able to relate to the students on various levels. He came to the United States in the early 1960s as a foreign exchange student, living in Glendale. He was 13 and, like many of his students at Carson High, learned English as a second language. Because of his dark complexion, he was often mistaken for a black American and was the victim of racial slurs.

“You gotta remember this was pre-civil rights, and Glendale was pretty much all-white,” Lal said.

At Carson High, Lal has changed little in the school’s curriculum. But he keeps his office open to everyone and frequently takes to the campus to visit with students, teachers and even maintenance workers.

“It’s that closeness that makes the kids perform better academically and socially,” Lal said. “Every kid has something to contribute. Even a kid who leads a gang has leadership qualities.”

However, Lal is not without his critics.

Richard Mangone, an English teacher who is the faculty’s union chairman, noted that some longtime teachers at the school “would prefer a more rigid, disciplined approach.”

Nevertheless, Mangone said Lal has changed attitudes among students about coming to school. “We have students in my class who wouldn’t have come after the second week of school,” Mangone said.

Lal, who has three children, said the most difficult obstacle he faced upon taking over as principal was combatting apathy on the part of teachers. He also came with a reputation for “cleaning house” among the faculty at Carson’s Carnegie Junior High School, which Lal headed for three years.

Carnegie improved its CAP scores 11% by the time Lal was transferred to Carson High. But his first priority at Carson High, Lal said, was to give the campus a face lift. He compared the campus to “an old, rusty ship.”

“Our whole philosophy here is ‘Is this school good enough for my own child?’ If it’s not, what am I gonna do to make it better?” Lal explained.

To that end, Lal launched a campus beautification project. When money was not available from the district for shrubbery and a new paint job, Lal solicited $17,000 in private, corporate donations. The work is half complete, all of it done by the students.

The most visible change is the greenhouse. Some current and former gang members are enrolled in Neal’s class, and some of the students who helped renovate the greenhouse said they used to regularly tag it with graffiti. Its windows were often broken out and wooden walls kicked in.

This year, the students purchased and installed new wood siding and painted it.

For now, the structure has yet to be vandalized, and the school itself largely remains free of graffiti.

“The cleaner the school, the better the atmosphere,” said Jeremey Scheel, an 11th-grader. “We didn’t have respect for it before.”