SACRAMENTO, Calif. /California Newswire/ — Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the following appointments: First, Erick Casallas, 31, of Bakersfield, has been appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Casallas has been a classroom teacher at Emerson Middle School in the Bakersfield City School District since 2006 and taught at Terrace Elementary in Delano Unified School District from 2005 to 2006. He taught at Ford Boulevard Elementary in the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2002 to 2005 while serving for Teach for America. Casallas was Kern County Teacher of the Year in 2011 and Emerson Middle School Teacher of the Year in 2008. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Casallas is a Democrat.
Eddie Cuevas, 40, of Los Angeles, has been appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Cuevas has taught government and economics at West Adams Preparatory High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District since 2007. He has served as a Western Association of Schools and Colleges co-coordinator at West Adams Preparatory High School since 2010 and was the social studies department chair from 2008 to 2010. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Cuevas is a Democrat.
Linda Darling-Hammond, 59, of Stanford, has been appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Darling-Hammond has served as a professor of education at Stanford University since 1998. She founded the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education in 2008 and the School Redesign Network in 2000, and served as the faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program from 1998 to 2005. Darling-Hammond served as the executive director at the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future from 1994 to 2001. She was a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University and the co-director at the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching at Teachers College at Columbia University from 1989 to 1998. Darling-Hammond received the 2011 Brock International Prize in Education and the 2009 McGraw Hill Prize for Innovation in Education. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Darling-Hammond is a Democrat.
Kathleen Harris, 52, of Sebastopol, has been appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Harris has been a classroom teacher in the Piner-Olivet Union School District since 1986. She has served as an English language arts specialist at the North Coast Program Improvement Consortium since 2004 and was regional director of the California Reading and Literature Project from 1998 to 2001. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Harris is a Democrat.
Alicia Hinde, 33, of Los Gatos, has been appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Hinde has been a classroom teacher at Bagby Elementary in Cambrian School District since 2001. Hinde has served as the president of the Cambrian District Teachers Association since 2010. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Hinde is a Democrat.
Louise Stymeist, 55, of Granite Bay, has been appointed to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Stymeist has served as a coordinator in career technical preparation for the Sacramento City Unified School District since 2002 after serving as a school to work coordinator in the district from 2000 to 2002 and a resource teacher from 1996 to 1998. Stymeist was a regional occupational program teacher at Hiram Johnson High School in the Sacramento City Unified School District from 1998 to 2000. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Stymeist is registered decline-to-state.