School Board Elects Officers for 2016 - Matt Haney elected Board President

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School Board Elects Officers for 2016 - Matt Haney elected Board President

Press release

January 13, 2016 (San Francisco) – Last night the San Francisco Board of Education elected its officers for the 2016 year. Commissioner Matt Haney is now president of the Board of Education and Commissioner Shamann Walton is vice president.

President Haney is in the fourth year of his first term on the San Francisco Board of Education. He served as vice president in 2014.

“It is such an honor to be elected to serve as the President of the Board of Education,” said Haney. “I am looking forward to working with my colleagues and Superintendent Carranza to close the achievement gap and ensure that the tremendous opportunities available in our city are shared with all of our children.”

About President Matt Haney

Matt Haney has served on the Board of Education since January 2013, where he has written policies aimed to increase safe and supportive schools and computer science education pre-K – 12. He is the Director of Policy at Rebuild the Dream, where he leads policy advocacy for #cut50, a bipartisan initiative to cut the prison population in half in ten years, and #YesWeCode, an initiative to create a pipeline for 100,000 low opportunity youth to become the best coders, computer engineers and designers in the world.

Haney is also an Education Fellow and Adjunct Faculty Member at the Stanford d.school, where he uses design thinking and human centered design to incubate new ideas in education relating to student voice and student engagement.

As the former Executive Director of the University of California Student Association, he worked directly for the 200,000 students in the UC system, managing a budget of over half a million dollars and a staff to ensure public education is protected for current and future generations.

Haney holds a BA from UC Berkeley, an MA from Stanford University School of Education; a JD from Stanford Law School with a focus on education law; and an LLM in Human Rights from National University of Ireland where he was a Senator George Mitchell Scholar.

About Vice President Shamann Walton 

Walton has served on the San Francisco Board of Education since January, 2014, where he co-authored the resolutions to implement pathways to SFUSD careers & internship programs, pathways for Arabic and Vietnamese Language and supports for African American Students in SFUSD.

Walton currently serves as the Executive Director of Young Community Developers, Inc.

(YCD), a workforce development agency located in Bayview Hunters Point. At YCD, he manages, develops and implements job readiness training, job placement and case management services for participants. Under his leadership, YCD has worked directly with SFUSD, providing quality tutorial, credit recovery and job training programs in several SFUSD high schools. He has increased the organization’s budget by over 300 percent and grown the staff to 31 employees (90 FTE during peak times throughout the year).

Prior to joining Young Community Developers, Walton developed an extensive record of collaboration and leadership within Bay Area schools and nonprofits. He has taught in the juvenile justice system through the Solano County Office of Education.

Walton is a native San Franciscan who has been a leader within local public schools and youth-serving organizations for the past eighteen years. Walton holds a BA in political science from Morris Brown College and a MPA from San Francisco State University.

Walton says he inherited his love for his community from his mother Catherine Cartwright and his mentor and surrogate father, Philmore Graham. Impacting the lives of others, particularly children, is the biggest motivator in his life.

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Page updated on 01/13/16

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