The transition to Common Core has opened up a brief space of opportunity for teachers to determine what the next decade of education will look like in our District. However, we lack the degree of organization to assert our voice and the unity to articulate a shared vision. If I am elected Vice President, I will work to directly organize teachers in asserting ourselves as professionals, as the subject matter experts in our classrooms, and as the true advocates for students in the city of Fresno.

Senior Research Associate Pamela Spycher is an expert on teacher professional learning, comprehensive school and district improvement, and academic language and literacy instruction—particularly for English learners (ELs) and other linguistically diverse students. Spycher is a member of the Comprehensive School Assistance Program (CSAP) at WestEd, working with CSAP’s California Comprehensive Center. Her work with the California Department of Education includes serving as a lead writer of the n

Dr. Hallie Yopp Slowik, a professor in the Department of Elementary and Bilingual Education, teaches literacy courses to preservice and inservice teachers and co-directs the CSU system’s Center for the Advancement of Reading (www.calstate.edu/car). Her primary areas of expertise are early literacy, academic language, and comprehension of narrative and content texts. She has written numerous articles, serves on several editorial advisory boards, and she is the co-author of six books: Purposeful P

Susan Marie Kunze (born June 6, 1953, in Highland Park, California) is a second and third grade teacher in Bishop, California, situated in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She is an author of educational books as well as a recipient of the 2008 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.[1] Kunze graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University in 1975, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Ryan Act Multiple Subject Credential. In 1982, she completed a Master of Edu