School Board Redistricting

What are the real educational and community interests of the San Fernando Valley?

I have struggled with this question for all of my 13 years as a school board member. The recent contentious redistricting of the school district makes public the personal struggle of all elected Valley officials.

My original reason for settling in the San Fernando Valley was to seek a better lifestyle, safe and educationally sound schools, parks where our children can play and plenty of open space.

Today those qualities that attracted so many other families to the Valley also tend to isolate us. However, the irony is that the Valley is a diverse, multicultural community and, in my view, richer and stronger because of it. This is the reason it is vital for elected representatives of the city to be sensitive to and concerned about Valley needs, just as it is imperative that we in the Valley be sensitive to the city’s needs. Increasingly, these needs have become strikingly similar.

Artificial barriers, based on geography, shortchange the Valley and the city. For many years, the two school board members representing the Valley were outvoted on issues of importance to Valley children. Nothing gets accomplished on this board without four votes. That is why, when the opportunity arose to support the redistricting plan providing four board members to the Valley, I felt no qualms about supporting the plan.

As I expected, new Valley school board member Jeff Horton and President Leticia Quezada have made their presences known in the Valley by attending meetings with the leadership of this community and staging a press conference to demonstrate how further budget cuts will impact a Valley school. I believe that, in the future, the benefit of this coalition of Valley school board members will become obvious and that their actions will speak louder than any words.

ROBERTA WEINTRAUB, Los Angeles. Weintraub wrote as a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education .