Teacher Martha Barnes, who'd been at Hawthorne High seven years, said she was upset when the Centinela Valley district transferred her to Lawndale, but she's making the best of it. (Scott Varley Staff Photographer)

When Martha Barnes was told she'd be among about 45 teachers to be shuffled against their will to another school in the Centinela Valley Union High School District, she was furious.

But several months after her move to Lawndale High, she doesn't want to return to her alma mater Hawthorne High, where she taught for seven years.

"I hate the way the district handled that," she said of the transfers. "But now that I'm here, I don't have a choice. Since I have no choice, I choose to be happy where I am."

Barnes - who says she loves working with her new colleagues - is not alone in her unexpected contentment. Half a year after the controversial move - which triggered a spasm of public protests from teachers and students alike - two-thirds of the teachers who were plucked from one campus and sent to another don't want to move back, union and district officials say.