Roberta Weintraub

Roberta Weintraub (née Goldring; 1935 – January 1, 2019) was an activist in the anti–school‑busing movement in Los Angeles who later was elected to the Los Angeles Board of Education. After her career in politics she became an entrepreneur and founded several charter schools.

Roberta Weintraub was born in Los Angeles in 1935. Her family was Jewish. She was a third‑generation Angeleno, the daughter of Charles and Leona Goldring,^[1] and attended Fairfax High School. She graduated from UCLA in 1960, majoring in education with a minor in political science.^[2] During that time period she also worked on John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and was an active participant in the civil rights movement.^[3] She later earned a certificate in state and local government from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.^[4][5]

Weintraub first entered the political sphere when she worked for the Democratic Party in New York City before she was married.^[6] Later, as a physician's spouse in the mid-1970s, she began to lobby in Sacramento for medical malpractice laws that would be more advantageous for doctors, especially in regard to insurance premiums. She had been a liberal Democrat all of her life, but she realized that with this issue she could only get traction as a conservative, so she switched political parties to become a Republican.^[2]

As a parent in the San Fernando Valley, Weintraub became an activist in the anti school busing movement in the 1970s. She was elected to the Los Angeles School Board in 1979 after losing her first election in 1977.^[2][7] She served 14 years on the board and was elected president four times.^[8][9]

Weintraub was known for her blunt, outspoken positions, including once calling fellow board member Rita Walters a “bitch” on the radio^[10] and pushing for expulsion of students carrying weapons. She advocated for more magnet schools and helped open the first school‑based health clinics that dispensed contraceptives. She built alliances across ideological lines even though she was a conservative on many issues.^[4][11]

Weintraub left the Board of Education in 1993 and ran unsuccessfully for the Los Angeles City Council in 1995. Weintraub founded the Police Academy Magnet School Program in the late 1990s, creating a partnership between LAUSD and LAPD. She helped to expand the program to nine campuses, emphasizing law enforcement principles, constitutional law, and criminal justice. She founded High Tech Los Angeles in 2004, a charter school focused on science, math, and technology.^[12][13]

Weintraub helped to launch the Police Orientation Preparation Program in 2007 to support young adults between high school graduation and the minimum age for police service. She hosted the Emmy‑winning television show School Beat. She also co‑created Students Run LA to promote youth fitness and healthy habits.^[4]

Weintraub married Lewis Weintraub, a physician, with whom she had two sons, Richard and Michael. Michael died in a car accident in 1985 at the age of seventeen.^[14] She divorced Weintraub and later remarried to Ira Krinsky. Weintraub had been a long-time resident of the San Fernando Valley, but she relocated from Sherman Oaks to the Westside, Los Angeles after the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged her home.^[12][15]

Weintraub died on January 1, 2019, at the age of 83 after a long battle with glioblastoma.^[4]

After her death, former LAPD Chief William J. Bratton called Weintraub ‘’the guardian angel of the Los Angeles law enforcement community.’’ California State Senator Bob Hertzberg said that "she listened deeply (and) was a master at bridge building ... for a better LA and particularly for our children."^[4][16]