Dr. Moisés G. Aguirre is superintendent of the Sweetwater Union High School District, which serves the Chula Vista region. He is responsible for leading the largest secondary school district in California, serving approximately 36,000 students in middle and high school and approximately 10,000 students in the adult school level. Prior to his current role, he served as the interim superintendent beginning in June of 2020, leading the district through the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this, he served as assistant superintendent of facilities and operations, in which role he led the nutrition services, transportation, maintenance, planning and construction, and district architect departments. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish/Latin American literature from the University of California, San Diego, and his master’s degree in public administration and doctorate in education leadership from San Diego State University.

Mary Briggs is senior director of research and education policy development at the California School Boards Association (CSBA). Her work focuses on local K–12 governance across the diversity of California’s school districts and county offices of education. She works with a team of education policy analysts who focus on supporting board members with research and timely information about key issues facing governance teams. Recent CSBA research projects include the examination of local educational agencies’ use of state and federal COVID-19 relief funding, school safety, and budgeting through an equity lens. Prior to joining CSBA, she worked for 12 years as an elementary school teacher in the greater Sacramento region. She later studied school organization and education policy at the University of California, Davis, where her work focused on district coherence, school finance, and local policy implementation practices.

Bruce Fuller is professor of education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. His work centers on institutions, large and small, that attempt to lift children and families and often focuses on how the social organization of schools or families advance the well-being of young children. He is author of Standardized Childhood and Organizing Locally. His latest book—When Schools Work—reports how a feisty band of activists shook civic politics in Los Angeles and won school reforms that elevated student achievement for nearly two decades. After receiving his doctorate in sociology at Stanford University, he worked in southern Africa for the World Bank, then taught comparative policy at Harvard University.

Julien Lafortune is a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, where he specializes in education and economics. He is also a member of the PPIC Economic Policy Center. His primary areas of focus include K–12 education finance, school infrastructure, human capital, and labor market policy. He has authored policy reports, briefs, presentations, and blogs on a variety of policy topics, including K–12 education, labor market issues, demographics, and housing markets. He has academic published research papers on school finance reforms and school capital investments in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics and the American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Dr. Ed Manansala is county superintendent of schools for El Dorado County, California. His tenure has been marked by strong collaboration with leaders to increase achievement, equity, and the successful implementation of the California Statewide System of Support for all schools. He began his career in education with Sacramento City Unified School District, and transitioned to principal and superintendent of St. HOPE Public Schools. While he served as principal of Sacramento High, the school demonstrated significant academic growth and an increase in four-year college acceptance rate. He was the 2019 president of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association, served on Governor Newsom’s Charter School Task Force, and was vice chair of the State Board of Education’s California Practitioners Advisory Group. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration and his MSW at California State Universtity, Sacramento, and his EdD at the University of California, Davis.