SOUTHLAND : School Board Reelects Goldberg

Saying improving academic achievement is her top priority, Jackie Goldberg today was elected to a second one-year term as president of the Board of Education for the 610,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District.

Goldberg won the post on a 6-0 vote. Board Member Rita Walters, who has clashed with most of her colleagues at one time or another, abstained.

Formerly a teacher for the Compton Unified School District, Goldberg was first elected to the Los Angeles board in 1983 and represents downtown and adjacent communities.

Her occupation of the high-visibility post coincides with the district’s efforts to decentralize and put more decision-making authority at each school site, its fight to obtain the former Ambassador Hotel site for a new high school, and its plans to put all its more than 600 schools onto a year-round calendar by next summer.

Goldberg, who recently presided over the board’s biggest round of budget-cutting since the tax-slashing Proposition 13 passed in 1978, also will represent the board in upcoming contract negotiations with United Teachers-Los Angeles, whose three-year pact expires next summer.