A Dream School Becomes Reality

A quarter of a century after the anti-busing movement launched her political career and 11 years after she left the Los Angeles Board of Education, Roberta Weintraub returned to the public spotlight -- and her San Fernando Valley base -- with the dedication Wednesday of her latest brainchild.

HighTechHigh-LA, which Weintraub calls her dream school, is housed in an ultra-modern building nestled into a spot on the vast campus of Birmingham High School in Van Nuys. The new charter school’s college-prep, math and science-oriented curriculum draws students from across Los Angeles, including many from minority, low-income neighborhoods.

“It’s the most creative and wonderful experience of my life,” said Weintraub, the effervescent but tough woman who won her school board seat in a 1979 recall election at the height of the anti-busing fervor, and stayed around long enough -- 14 years -- to become more moderate, launching campus-based health clinics and innovative magnet programs and advocating healthier foods and physical fitness in schools.

Built for about 325 students, the school reflects current educational thinking on the importance of small high schools to foster individual attention, collaborative learning and courses tailored to students’ talents and interests.

Building and equipping it took $13 million in public and private funds. Weintraub raised much of that herself. And she did just about everything else, from picking out the furniture and colors (lime, orange and dark blue) to hiring a well-regarded Birmingham administrator, Marsha Rybin, as principal. Weintraub serves as the executive director of the nonprofit foundation that runs the public school in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

She can talk about the shocking rise in steel prices as easily as she speaks about the need for schools that teach students to use the latest technology and prepare them for the rapidly changing workplace.

“This is our joy, our dream,” Weintraub said in an interview, words and thoughts tumbling under the force of her characteristic enthusiasm.

“It has every bell and whistle you could possibly want .... I just hope others will come along and replicate it, even though it’s very expensive.”

Wednesday’s ceremonies, which included tributes from state schools chief Jack O’Connell and Los Angeles Supt. Roy Romer -- and thank-yous from students -- proved that Weintraub is still going strong in education circles.

Romer joked that Weintraub’s drive and determination would have spelled trouble for the legendary Gen. George Patton -- had he ever found himself on the opposite side of one of her causes.

And Lowell Milken, Birmingham alumnus, philanthropist and brother of former junk-bond pioneer Michael Milken, said he couldn’t decline when Weintraub approached him with her idea for the school nearly four years ago.

His foundation became the largest single donor when it gave $1.5 million to the school, now officially called Lowell Milken Family Foundation HighTechHigh-Los Angeles.

Widely viewed as a one-issue board member when first elected, Weintraub broadened her interests during her years on the board, serving three times as its president. She teamed up with liberal board member Jackie Goldberg, now an assemblywoman, to open the school-based health clinics, angering many of her conservative constituents and local Catholic church leaders, who opposed the campus clinics for dispensing contraceptives. She also took an interest in magnet schools, the specialized campuses that became the city’s main means of voluntary integration. She forged a then-unique partnership of public and private interests to build Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet on L.A.’s Eastside in 1990, the district’s first new high school in 17 years.

Her board years also brought profound changes at home. A stay-at-home mother and physician’s wife when elected, she endured the death, in a traffic accident, of one of her two sons; years later, she divorced.

She decided against a reelection bid in 1993, choosing instead to join a long and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to break up the district she had helped lead. Two years later, she ran for a Los Angeles City Council seat but lost in the primary and switched her focus back to education.

Weintraub approached then-Mayor Richard Riordan about establishing police academy magnets in Los Angeles high schools, appealing to his goal of adding officers to the understaffed department.

Today, there are six police academy magnets on local campuses, and some of their graduates have become LAPD officers.

Now remarried -- to Korn Ferry executive Ira Krinsky -- and living near Beverly Hills, Weintraub says she put in 14-hour days as HighTechHigh neared reality. The school opened in September.

A longtime fitness buff, Weintraub on Wednesday looked trim in a red-knit dress as she emceed the school dedication ceremony, but her once-trademark red curls had been tamed into champagne blond waves. Weintraub doesn’t like to discuss her age but public records show she recently marked her 69th birthday.

On a tour of the campus, visitors saw the Robotics lab, where students showed off their skills and peered into classrooms with “smart boards” that show videos and save students’ work to a computer.

They saw the “project rooms” where small groups of students work together. Skylights and a vast expanse of windows bathe the building in natural light.

Tenth-grader Kevin Quinonez, who wants to be an engineer, said he was happy to be attending the school.

“The tools I will need for what is going to be my trade,” he said, “are all right here.”