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Ref is President of the Board of Education for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). LAUSD is the second-largest school district in the nation and the biggest with an elected school board. It serves over 730,000 students, covering an area that totals 710 square miles. This includes most of the City of Los Angeles, along with 26 cities and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. He co-founded Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC Schools), a network of charter schools serving students in Northeast Los Angeles and the Northeast San Fernando Valley. Before joining the charter schools movement, Ref worked in the business sector and as a teacher and administrator in Catholic parochial schools. He is the first of five children of Mexican immigrants to graduate from college. Ref has served as adjunct professor in the School of Education at his alma mater, Loyola Marymount University, where he developed a master's and administrative credential program for aspiring leaders in charter schools. He was appointed to the California Commission for Teacher Credentialing by Governor Jerry Brown in 2013. He is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
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