Relying on Community Values: How One School Leader Advocates for Vulnerable Families 7 min read
Carissa Purnell, director of the Family Resource Centers for Alisal Union School District in Salinas, Calif., provides essential services and critical information to vulnerable families.Nic Coury for Education Week
Carissa Purnell
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Growing up in a large Filipino immigrant family in Sacramento, Calif., Carissa Purnell didn’t feel like she really fit into the local community. But that changed in 2010 when she started teaching English at a library in Salinas, Calif., while she was in graduate school.
“It just felt like home as soon as I got here,” Purnell said of Salinas, a city roughly two hours south of San Francisco where nearly 80 percent of the residents are Hispanic.
Former Monterey County superintendent named acting head of Stockton Unified [The Record, Stockton, Calif]
John Ramirez Jr. is in charge of the Stockton Unified School District, but it is not a permanent appointment. At least not yet.
In a closed meeting of SUSD trustees, Ramirez was voted in as the acting superintendent in place of an ailing Brian Biedermann, who is out on medical leave and scheduled to leave his post as interim superintendent on Feb. 25. Ramirez may end up with the interim title, or even be named permanent leader of the district, but there’s more to the process.