The CCUSD Board of Education voted unanimously at its August 9 meeting to appoint Quoc Tran as the new Culver City Schools Superintendent.

"Mr. Tran comes to us with a great deal of experience and a true commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion," said Board President Tashon McKeithan. "He will be a true asset to our District."

Tran, currently the assistant superintendent of educational services at Franklin-McKinley School District in San José, California, will replace Leslie Lockhart, who announced her retirement earlier this year.

"I am proud of the exhaustive, transparent and collaborative process that led us to the District's new superintendent," said McKeithan. "We solicited and received input from the public and our school communities at every turn, and I know that this inclusive process has helped us hire the right person."

As an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University (CGU), Tran was a co-recipient of a U.S. Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad Scholarship, Project VOICE-CGU (2010-2017) where he co-led a team of 12 future teachers on a six-week immersive study trip to Vietnam.

In addition to teaching and his engineering background, he has experience as a director in the areas of English Learner Services, Equity Programs, Multi-tiered System of Support, Curriculum & Instruction, Research, Data Analysis & Assessments, State & Federal Projects, and Public Information & Communication.

Tran's fiancée, Crystal Hahm, is also an educator and has spent 19 years as a third-grade teacher in the Tustin Unified School District, where she was once a Teacher of the Year nominee.

Having grown up in the Vietnam War; Tran arrived in the U.S. at the age of 17 after spending years in a refugee camp in Malaysia and has committed to focus his life work to confront issues impacting diversity, inclusion and equity in the public education arena.

"The great poet Maya Angelou once said, '... that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength,'" Tran said. "I am honored to bring my passion and commitment to achieve the beauty and strength of the diversity that we are, the inclusion that we practice, and the equity outcome that we create for all students."