Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Long Beach resident Naomi Rainey to the Advisory Commission on Special Education. According to the commission’s web site, its purpose is to provide “recommendations and advice to the State Board of Education, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Legislature, and the Governor in new or continuing areas of research, program development and evaluation in California special education.”

Rainey is an independent education consultant and was a principal on special assignment at Long Beach Polytechnic High School where she was previously assistant principal from 1996 to 2000. She currently serves as President of the Long Beach Branch of the NAACP and was the Grand Marshall in Long Beach’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade earlier this year. The Long Beach Area League of Women Voters recently honored Rainey as their “2009 Woman of the Year.”