Weintraub Plans to Leave School Board : Education: Longtime Valley representative says she will focus attention on breaking up L.A. Unified.

Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub, who won office as an antibusing leader and went on to become the board’s longest-serving representative, said Tuesday she will not seek reelection to her San Fernando Valley seat this spring and will instead turn her energies toward breaking up the mammoth school district.

Weintraub said she is retiring because she believes the teachers union--which has threatened a strike next month--exercises too much political influence on the school board and because the school district is in a financially “untenable” position and has become ungovernable.

Weintraub, 57, said she plans to support state Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) in his attempt to break up Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district.

“After 14 years on the Board of Education, I’ve given a great deal of thought to this decision, and . . . I have decided to retire,” Weintraub said. “I’ve done my service on the board, and the time has come for a different phase of my life.”

Although she stopped short of blaming the teachers union for the current turmoil, Weintraubsaid the union’s power has grown over the past decade, resulting in a school system racked by bitter labor relations.

“A lot of this decision-making came about because of what I’ve seen in the last couple of years, especially with the (1989 teachers) strike and the extent of union control of the board. . . . The pendulum swung too far, and it’s time for the pendulum to swing back,” she said.

Weintraub’s surprise announcement prompted fellow school board member Julie Korenstein to say she is “strongly inclined” to run for Weintraub’s seat in April.

Korenstein, who represents the west Valley, recently purchased a Tarzana condominium in Weintraub’s newly reapportioned mid-Valley district, which was created after an acrimonious City Hall battle last summer that eliminated one of two all-Valley seats and threw Korenstein into the same district as Westside board member Mark Slavkin.

Weintraub said she had suspected that Korenstein would run against her, but she denied that a potential battle with the west Valley representative influenced her decision not to seek a fifth term. She said she began contemplating retirement from the board in May and made up her mind about a month ago in frustration over the tumult in the school district, which came close to bankruptcy last fall.

Weintraub was a full-time homemaker when she was elected to the board in 1979 after leading a successful effort to recall a pro-busing board member.

Outspoken to the point of stridence in her first years, Weintraub ran into trouble with the black community after she referred to Rita Walters, then a fellow board member, as a “bitch” during a radio interview.

But she later tempered her style and was elected board president three times.

After mandatory busing ended in 1981, Weintraub became a strong advocate for equal pay and better advancement opportunities for female school employees.

A health and fitness buff, she campaigned for more nutritious school meals and briefly succeeded in banning junk food from campus vending machines. She also insisted on adding a trendy mineral water to the candy and peanuts that board members snacked on during meetings.

But in recent years, Weintraub, elected as a conservative Republican, encountered a series of controversies that alienated many allies, and some suggested her reelection prospects had dimmed as a result.

“She sold out the community,” said former board member Bobbi Fiedler, who was also a staunch opponent of busing.

In 1986, Weintraub backed a plan to set up health clinics at San Fernando High School and two other high schools that were authorized to dispense contraceptives--an idea that ignited massive protests by Catholics.

Last year, she threw her weight behind the school district reapportionment plan, which was supported by Latino groups seeking more voting power on the board. But the new boundaries deeply angered many Valley parents and school activists, some of whom charged Weintraub with “deserting” the Valley.

Also last year, she changed her party registration to Democrat, prompting speculation that she was interested in running for another office, possibly the seat occupied by Roberti, an ally of Weintraub’s who must retire next year because of voter-approved term limits.

On Tuesday Weintraub said she would not rule out seeking higher office later but was content with her accomplishments on the school board.

“I can look myself in the mirror. I’ve always been a straight-shooter,” she said. “I’ve always done my best to do what I thought was the right thing.”