To: Mr. Austin Beutner, Incoming Superintendent, Los Angeles Unified School District
CC: President Monica Garcia, Vice President Nick Melvoin, Dr. George McKenna, Dr. Richard Vladovic, Kelly Gonez, Scott Shmerleson, Dr. Refugio Rodriguez
From: Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellows
Date: May 15, 2018
RE: Invitation to Collaborate
Dear Mr. Beutner:
We would like to congratulate you on your recent appointment as Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. As teachers in the Los Angeles district and charter schools, we hope that you will set high expectations for the future of our district and work collaboratively with the Board of Education to provide strategic vision and leadership for the thousands of students, educators, school employees, and families impacted by your governance.
We believe that involving great educators in the education policymaking process is critically important to the success of these policies. As current classroom teachers and Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellows, we would like to offer our perspectives as experienced practitioners to help you and the Board of Education develop ways to improve our district and create policies to better serve students.
In our work as Teach Pus Fellows, we’re considering a number of important issues across LAUSD including the diversity, or lack thereof, of the LAUSD teaching staff; early career supports needed for developing teachers; a comprehensive system of supports for emerging bilingual classrooms; and ways to facilitate the equitable distribution of highly effective educators across school districts.
We would love the opportunity to meet with you and share some of our work and thinking on these issues to ensure that teachers ‘ insights and experiences inform your vision for Los Angeles Unified. As you stated at your news conference, “We can do this!” We believe in the potential of our students and of this district, and look forward to working with you moving forward.
We will follow up soon to schedule a time to meet. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Teach Plus California Policy Fellows
Spencer Burrows, The City School
Karina Gensicke, Franklin Avenue Elementary School
Daniel Helena, Kory Hunter Middle School
Erica Marlaine, Nevada Avenue Elementary School
Nikki Revelle, New Designs Charter School
Charles Snow, KIPP Scholar Academy
Gregory Williams, Jr., Narbonne High School
Sarah Lillis, Teach Plus California Executive Director
