Thomas Courtney is a 2020-2021 Teach Plus California Senior Policy Fellow who teaches 5th grade at Chollas-Mead Elementary School in San Diego, where he has been honored with teacher of the year on three occasions. Thomas is a Fulbright Fellow with the U.S. State Department’s Teacher for Global Classrooms. He serves as a guide teacher with SDSU and is a member of the CTC workgroup renewing the California Standards for the Teaching Profession.