Candidate for
Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 12

JULIE KORENSTEIN http://www.juliekorenstein.org/c04bo_peg.htm Biographical Information

Julie Korenstein attended schools in the LAUSD and received her B.A. Degree in history from CSUN in1971. She received her elementary teaching credential in 1972 and her secondary teaching credential in 1974.

Born in California, Julie has been a resident of the Valley for over 35 years. All three of her children graduated from LAUSD schools. Julie is the grandmother of 3; 2 boys under two years of age and one granddaughter who is attending a district school in the Valley.

Julie has over 35 years of experience as an education advocate and is the senior member of the Los Angeles City Board of Education.

While working as a teacher at Chatsworth High School, Julie became a leader in the burgeoning field of service learning by establishing a model program, Exploratory Community Service, that provided students with volunteer opportunities in various fields. The program's aim was to help students gain work experience and insight as well as the intrinsic value of volunteering. Today high schools, community colleges and universities have established service learning programs as a part of their curriculum.

Since 1989, Julie has provided funding for the Kindergarten Intervention Program.(KIP) which addresses the needs of at-risk children experiencing academic, social or emotional problems. This model dropout prevention program targets children in kindergarten and first grade and uses trained volunteers to assist in activities that improve academic performance.

In 1989, Julie established the School Safety and Security Task Force to study how to make LAUSD schools safer for children. Many of the recommendations resulting from this in-depth study were adopted by the board and are in operation today. In 1999, Julie was also instrumental in helping to bring about. a new Integrated Pest Management Policy to phase out the use of dangerous pesticides and herbicides.

Julie developed the District's Food Donation Program, which involves many of our schools and non-profit organizations and the nationally-renowned LAUSD Recycling Program, which has saved the District millions of dollars.

Julie was appointed in 1999 by Governor Gray Davis to serve on the Board of Governors for the Community College District. In this role she has expanded her educational experience into the community colleges--linking K-12 education with higher learning. She helped develop and initiate a program where high school students can attend community college classes and earn both high school and college credits concurrently.

During her tenure, Julie has been President of the board, developed the Shared Decision Making/School Based Management proposal; served on the Budget, Finance and Audit committee (responsible for reviewing business operations, audit findings and technology issues); chaired the Business and Operations/Facilities Committee for 10 years (responsible for reviewing strategies for the best use of district facilities and business operations such as recycling, purchasing health and safety, insurance, transportation and food services, became a member of the Dean's Advisory Council at CSUN and Senator Jack Scott's Education Advisory Committee.

Julie looks forward to building an elementary and middle school in Porter Ranch. When the Porter Ranch development was designed, Julie insisted it include the school sites. Julie's perseverance led to an agreement with the developer that when Porter Ranch reaches 60% (currently, it's under 30%)of it's capacity, construction on the much-needed schools will begin.

In conjunction with CSUN, Julie developed the Teacher Training Academy slated to open next year. This academy will be a state-of-the-art high school to train our interested youth to become the next generation of teachers. The Academy will also. serve as a training school for CSUN's future teaching graduate