Jackie Goldberg returns to L.A. school board with resounding election win
Jackie Goldberg, a veteran politician and educator who served on the Los Angeles school board three decades ago, will once again have a voice in the nation’s second-largest school district after a resounding win Tuesday for a seat in a special election.
Goldberg’s victory over candidate Heather Repenning was also a win for the teachers union and will mark a shift in the board's power dynamic that had recently tilted toward pro-charter-school alliances.
She vowed to work to bring more funding to the district and its neediest students, and improve conditions that teachers fought for during a January strike.
In the last 40 years, Goldberg told supporters Tuesday night in Echo Park, “We have raised class sizes, lost nurses, lost the class size that was appropriate, lost teaching assistants, lost assistant principals, lost counselors and psychiatric social workers.”
Goldberg won with 71.6% of the votes counted after polls closed Tuesday, not including provisional and some mail-in ballots.
“I do believe in the deepest part of my heart that it was the strike of the teachers … who woke up the public to what has happened to public education since 1978,” Goldberg said.
Repenning called Goldberg around 10:30 p.m. to concede.
“I’m very proud of the campaign that I ran — that we ran,” Repenning told supporters who gathered at a Silver Lake restaurant Tuesday night. “I've never run before. I didn't have any name ID. So I was really at a disadvantage.”
The seat has been vacant since the July 2018 resignation of former board member Ref Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to campaign finance violations.
Goldberg is entering a fraught time in the district, where leaders are struggling with declining enrollment, a fight over the expansion of charter schools and questions about how to meet the district’s financial commitments.
Her win could weaken the power of pro-charter school forces in L.A. — Rodriguez was one of four on the seven-member board elected with financial backing from charter school supporters. Goldberg gained support by speaking out forcefully against the growth of charter schools and said she was running to prevent the school board from being controlled by charter interests.
Though most charter reform requires state action, Los Angeles Unified is by far California’s CONTINUE READING: Jackie Goldberg returns to L.A. school board with resounding election win - Los Angeles Times
