FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
California Coalition Outlines Plan to Build a Diverse Educator Workforce
Building Bridges II Summit: 35-Organization CEDAN Sets Policy Agenda for a Teaching Profession that Reflects California’s Students
SACRAMENTO, CA, December 3, 2025—Today at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, the California Educator Diversity Action Network (CEDAN) is convening the Building Bridges II Summit to create a diverse teaching profession in California, including a multi-year campaign plan and a robust policy agenda to help ensure every student in the state has access to teachers who reflect their communities, languages, and cultures. Led by Teach Plus and EdTrust-West, CEDAN is a coalition of 35+ organizations—from classroom teachers to K-12 and higher education leaders to researchers to students and parents to community advocates—who are collectively working to ensure California’s teaching force is composed of diverse educators.
California faces a stark mismatch: more than 78% of students are students of color, yet only about 40% of teachers are. Research shows that teachers of color and multilingual teachers strengthen engagement, achievement, attendance and belonging for all students—especially students of color. Yet these educators also leave the profession at higher rates, often in the very communities where stability matters most. CEDAN was created to confront this challenge and move the field toward action.
The network’s roots trace back to April 2023, when Teach Plus and EdTrust-West brought together more than 150 stakeholders for the inaugural Building Bridges Summit to develop a shared understanding of why educators of color and multilingual educators enter, stay, and leave teaching, and to co-create a roadmap for change. Since then, the network has grown significantly.
“Two years ago, we came together to understand why teachers of color and multilingual educators leave the profession. Today, we’re building the solutions to recruit these educators into the field and ensure they stay,” said Sarah Lillis, Executive Director of Teach Plus California. “This isn’t just about policy recommendations on paper—it’s about creating the conditions where diverse educators can thrive, and where every student sees themselves reflected in the adults in their classrooms.”
At Building Bridges II, CEDAN is moving from understanding the problem to building the solution. CEDAN’s agenda focuses on four interconnected priorities: making it possible for aspiring teachers to enter the profession debt-free and fully prepared; keeping teachers of color and multilingual educators in classrooms through targeted support in their crucial first five years; ensuring teachers are fairly compensated for their expertise; and building the political will, a new narrative about teaching, and public investment, to make all of this sustainable statewide.
“When students see teachers who share their language, their culture, their lived experience, it changes what they believe is possible for themselves,” said Benito Aranda-Comer, TK-12 Policy Analyst at EdTrust-West. “But we can’t keep relying on the dedication of individual educators to overcome systemic barriers. California needs to build the infrastructure that makes teaching a sustainable, supported profession—especially for the educators our students need most.”
Summit Highlights
Panel & Discussion: Setting A Course For Equitable Compensation
This session will explore how California can advance an equitable compensation framework to attract and retain a diverse educator workforce and ensure every student has access to consistent, high-quality instruction.
Panel & Discussion: Building the Foundation for a Sustainable Teaching Profession
This session will explore how California can support teachers of color and multilingual educators—particularly in their crucial first five years—through targeted support, as well as state oversight and the data systems needed to track what’s working and what’s not.
Panel & Discussion: Refining the Blueprint for High Quality, Debt-Free Pathways to the Profession
This session will explore how California can make it possible for aspiring teachers who reflect the state’s racial and linguistic diversity to enter the profession fully prepared and without debt—particularly in communities that have the hardest time recruiting and keeping educators.
“I became a teacher because I wanted students like me to see that they belong in every classroom. But I’ve watched too many of my colleagues leave because the financial burden was too heavy, or the support just wasn’t there,” said Meghann Seril, a 5th grade teacher at Clover Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles. “What we’re doing at this summit matters because we’re finally designing policies based on what teachers like me actually need.”
Just like at the first summit, Building Bridges II puts educators at the center—teachers were instrumental in setting the goals of the network, and will lead the discussions necessary to ensure they are realized. Educator voice will continue to be central to CEDAN’s advocacy and will shape the policy agenda for a diverse profession.
“When you put our educators in the room to design the solutions, you get strategies that actually align and work in real classrooms, with real students, facing real challenges. That’s what makes this summit and CEDAN different—and that’s what gives me hope,” said Josh Salas, an Associate Principal at Hawking STEAM Charter #1 in San Diego.
About Teach Plus
The mission of Teach Plus is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students’ success. In pursuing this mission, Teach Plus is guided by the Student Opportunity Mandate: All students should have the opportunity to achieve their potential in an education system defined by its commitment to equity, its responsiveness to individual needs, and its ability to prepare students for postsecondary success. teachplus.org
About EdTrust-West
EdTrust-West is an evidence-driven advocacy organization committed to advancing policies and practices to dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in California’s education system. For 25 years, EdTrust-West has worked to improve racial equity in education by engaging diverse communities and increasing political and public will to build an education system where students of color and multilingual learners will thrive. For more information, see www.edtrustwest.org.
