Weintraub, Pollack Square Off on Schools

One of two candidates challenging Los Angeles school board President Roberta Weintraub in the April 11 election charged in a debate Wednesday that the 10-year incumbent has “lost touch” with her east San Fernando Valley constituency.

Citing gang and drug troubles, as well as a 40% dropout rate in the Los Angeles Unified School district, candidate Barry Pollack said “our system is failing, and Roberta Weintraub is steering that system.”

But Weintraub, 53, seeking her fourth term on the board, defended her record, which she said includes the defeat of a plan to expand year-round schools, the televising of weekly board meetings and support for expansion of the district’s bilingual program.

“I’ve done a good job,” Weintraub said.

Pollack blamed the board and Weintraub for delays in settling the months-long pay dispute between teachers and the district. He said the district can afford to pay more than the district’s latest offer, a 20% pay hike over three years.

Weintraub said that teachers deserve better salaries, but that the board has “pushed ourselves to the limit” with the current offer. The United Teachers-Los Angeles, the union representing most of the Los Angeles district teachers, has asked for an 11% raise for the current school year.

“This school board is putting its money where its mouth is,” Weintraub said.

Pollack said the district pays for more administrators than are needed to run the 592,000-student school district.

Weintraub said she will seek 3% to 5% in administrative cuts at the district’s downtown headquarters. “We won’t have any problem in reducing the bureaucracy because $100 million in cuts will be needed to increase the pay to teachers,” she said.

Pollack, 42, is an emergency room physician for an Orange County hospital. He is a founding member of Quality Education for Students, a parents group opposed to year-round schools. He has three children in Los Angeles schools.

Ernesto L. Llanes, 45, is also seeking Weintraub’s seat on the seven-member board that runs the country’s second largest school district. Llanes, an electrical contractor who was a teacher in the Philippines during the 1960s, said he was not notified in time of the debate and had made other plans.

Weintraub, who was first elected to the board in 1979 after the recall of former board member Howard Miller, predicted that she will raise more than $100,000 for the campaign.

Pollack, in his first run for public office, said he will raise $75,000 to $100,000.

“Weintraub has been in office 10 years, and I do not believe that anyone will say that our school system is any better off,” Pollack said.

The debate was sponsored by the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Mexican-American Political Assn.