Culver City Unified Names New Superintendent In Unanimous Vote

CULVER CITY, CA — The Culver City Unified School District Board of Education Monday voted unanimously to support hiring Quoc Tran as the district’s new superintendent.

Tran is currently the assistant superintendent of educational services at Franklin-McKinley School District in San José, California, and 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,” Board President Tashon McKeithan said. “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. Mr. Tran comes to us with a great deal of experience and a true commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. He will be a true asset to our District.”

Tran previously served as associate superintendent of educational services at Soledad Unified, and Alisal Union school districts, in Monterey County, California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from California State University – Los Angeles and has taught fourth and fifth grade, bilingual (Vietnamese) mathematics and science at the high school levels in Los Angeles. Tran is bilingual and bi-literate in Vietnamese, and has earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from California State University – Los Angeles.

As an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University (CGU), he 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.

Tran grew up in the Vietnam War and arrived in the U.S. at the age of 17 after spending years in a refugee camp in Malaysia. He has committed to focusing 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 in a statement. “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.”

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