in a 1992 interview<\/a>. \u201cI was looking for sensible ways to achieve this.\u201d<\/p>\nThe dispute over busing divided the city, and was especially opposed in the San Fernando Valley, where Docter lived. Officers were sent to guard his home amid death threats. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were anxious, confused,\u201d Docter said in 1992. \u201cThey were concerned about the lack of control: \u2018I bought my house in this neighborhood so my child could go to this school!\u2019 They were bitter. Many felt betrayed.\u201d<\/p>\n
There also was pressure from the other side \u2014 with liberal activists including future school board member Jackie Goldberg asserting that citywide integration should be the standard and could be mapped out to avoid bus rides longer than 20 to 30 minutes. She was concerned that Docter would weaken in his resolve, Goldberg recalled this week.<\/p>\n
Docter remained firm.<\/p>\n
In 1977, anti-busing parent activist Bobbi Fiedler ran against Docter, winning 56% of the vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the epitome of the left-wing, social-planning liberal,\u201d Fiedler said years later. \u201cHe was on the wrong side of the issue. He was out of touch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Docter said later that busing \u201cshould have been introduced on a voluntary basis to dispel fears among the majority population and resist white flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the legal and political landscape shifted and L.A. Unified \u2014 with court approval \u2014 developed voluntary integration that focused substantially on magnet schools, which have special, desirable programs and prioritize admissions that promote integration. <\/p>\n
Limited forced busing barely ever started \u2014 and was never truly carried out.<\/p>\n
By then, however, thousands of white parents had moved out of the district or pulled kids from Los Angeles public schools, accelerating an evolution in demographics that already was in progress. White enrollment was 55% in 1963 \u2014 when the first school desegregation suit was filed \u2014 and 37% white in 1976 as the busing dispute peaked. <\/p>\n
It stands at 10% today \u2014 a slight increase over recent years \u2014 and remains heavily concentrated in relatively few areas. <\/p>\n
Integration through busing \u201cdidn\u2019t fail,\u201d Docter said later. \u201cWe just never tried it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salvation Army connection<\/p>\n
Robert L. Docter was born July 20, 1928 in San Francisco to Lloyd and Violet Doctor, who worked as Salvation Army pastors, and moved to L.A. in 1945 \u2014 and Docter graduated from Fairfax High the following year.<\/p>\n
His connection to the Salvation Army was to be lifelong. He met his future wife, Dolores Diane Beecher, at a Salvation Army summer camp. They married in 1953. <\/p>\n
He played in the Army band for more than 70 years, marching in its Tournament of Roses band more than 50 times. He led open-air services at the corner of Hollywood and Vine.<\/p>\n
In 1983, he founded New Frontier Publications for the Salvation Army, serving as editor until 2017. In this role, he also wrote more than 600 columns. His writing became \u201ca companion to thousands, offering wit, wisdom and spiritual honesty\u201d the Salvation Army wrote in a tribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe invited us to see the world through a lens of hope, sincerity and conscience,\u201d wrote Christin Thieme, his successor as editor. \u201cHe believed deeply in the power of words, yes \u2014 but even more in the power of the character behind them. <\/p>\n
in 1992, the organization admitted him to the Order of the Founder, the highest honor bestowed by the Salvation Army to a lay member.<\/p>\n
![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764943756_955_\")
<\/p>\n
Robert Docter sits on the curb in front of Darby Avenue School, across from his Northridge home in the early 1990s. <\/p>\n
(George Wilhelm \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
A bond with local schools<\/p>\n
After his parents took the family to L.A., Docter attended local public schools, graduating from Fairfax High. <\/p>\n
He earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in English from UCLA in 1952 and then in 1956 a master\u2019s in education from USC, and a doctorate in educational psychology from the university in 1960. <\/p>\n
He also served in the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1954, stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey, and played trumpet in the 6th Infantry Division Band. After that, he taught at Vanalden Elementary in Tarzana for six years while earning his advanced degrees.<\/p>\n
In 1960 he Joined the education faculty of San Fernando Valley State College \u2014 which later became Cal State Northridge.<\/p>\n
Dr. Docter \u2014 as he was widely known \u2014 was an associate professor of education and a father of children in the public schools in 1969, when he became one of 21 candidates for three board seats, saying that the state\u2019s largest school system too often maintained an unsatisfactory status quo rather than updating its instructional methods.<\/p>\n
On the board, he became an ardent L.A. Unified defender while also pushing for change. He called out fellow board member J.C. Chambers as \u201cracist\u201d when The Times quoted Chambers saying he did not want to \u201cmix the races\u201d and made other derogatory comments about Black students.
Although Docter staunchly supported union bargaining rights, he had a falling-out with the teachers union that undermined his doomed reelection campaign. He lost the union endorsement after supporting a plan to integrate teachers as well as students \u2014 which would have resulted in some forced reassignments.<\/p>\n
He wrote three books: \u201cA View from the Corner\u201d (2008), alluding to the name of his regular column, \u201cIntegrity: A Complete Life\u201d (2015) and a novel, \u201cLost and Found
in Montana\u201d (2022).<\/p>\n
Docter did not run for office after leaving the school board.<\/p>\n
He \u201cdidn\u2019t have political ambitions,\u201d said daughter Sharon Docter. \u201cHe just cared about education. This was his passion. … What he wanted was to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued to ponder the state of schooling, expressing qualms about reducing education to numbers on standardized tests. Instead, he said in interviews, there should be more emphasis on ethics and morality as well as critical thinking and arts education.<\/p>\n
He is survived by his twin brother, Richard F. Docter. His wife of 71 years died on April 27. Other survivors are six children \u2014 Sharon as well as Richard L. Docter, Janet Pollock, Mary Docter, John Docter and Julie Jennings \u2014 15 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n
A celebration of life will be held at the Salvation Army Pasadena Tabernacle Corps on Sunday, Dec. 7, at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Docter, an L.A. school board member in the 1970s who successfully pushed to end corporal punishment and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3409,47096,47095,15,8593,47099,1793,47098,47097,48,52,51,47,50,49,47100,41145,15191,4574,10384,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-82780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-child","9":"tag-corporal-punishment","10":"tag-docter","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-family-member","13":"tag-integration","14":"tag-issue","15":"tag-l-a-school","16":"tag-l-a-school-board-member","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-headlines","19":"tag-la-news","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","22":"tag-los-angeles-news","23":"tag-richard-f-docter","24":"tag-salvation-army","25":"tag-state-legislature","26":"tag-student","27":"tag-teacher","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}