{"id":936,"date":"2019-02-06T14:21:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T22:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/?p=936"},"modified":"2019-08-09T16:55:39","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T23:55:39","slug":"dr-michelle-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/dr-michelle-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Michelle King"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Dear USC Rossier Students,
It is with profound sadness that I share with you the passing of Dr. Michelle King EdD \u201917, whose\u00a0death from cancer<\/a>\u00a0was announced this past weekend.As many of you know, Dr. King became a member of the Trojan family when she earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at our school in 2017. She never missed a class, even though she had been named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District a year earlier, in January of 2016. She had been on the job for only two years when she stepped down to undergo medical treatment.

The first African American woman — and 11th Trojan — to lead the nation\u2019s second-largest school system, she embraced its challenges and set goals that some people thought were impossibly high, such as a 100 percent high school graduation rate. In her all-too-brief administration, she managed to move the needle on that issue and others. She advanced STEM and bilingual education and oversaw the launch of two all-girls schools, with an emphasis on math and science at one and athletic leadership at the other.

Those of us who were lucky enough to know her understand with an ache in our hearts what we have lost.

\u201cShe just exuded leadership, and not from a forceful standpoint but from a standpoint of collaboration,\u201d said Dr. Michael Escalante EdD \u201902, who chaired Dr. King\u2019s dissertation committee. He recruited her for our EdD program\u2019s first executive cohort, which was made up of 16 superintendents and assistant superintendents. Their studies took them to Ireland to collect data on school science fairs.\u00a0In her thesis<\/a>\u00a0Dr. King examined the influence of globalization on STEM teaching in the Irish educational system.

Dr. King was a native of Los Angeles, who attended LAUSD schools from kindergarten through 12th grade; she graduated from Palisades High School during the years of court-ordered busing to reduce segregation. After earning her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees from UCLA and Pepperdine, respectively, she returned to L.A. Unified to teach middle school science.
In 1997 she began her ascent through the district\u2019s ranks, serving as an assistant principal, principal, administrator of secondary instruction, regional superintendent and senior deputy superintendent. After a national search, she won the Board of Education\u2019s unanimous support as superintendent, stirring excitement throughout the district and the communities it serves because of her long history in Los Angeles.\u00a0After a series of superintendents who had come from somewhere else, she was the first LAUSD veteran in a decade to reach the No. 1 job.

After accepting the superintendency, she said: \u201cI want to ensure that the enthusiasm for teaching and learning that I experienced in LAUSD \u2026 is the reality for all of our students.\u201d

\u201cShe could never see herself anywhere other than L.A. Unified,\u201d said Dr. Maria Ott, PhD \u201994, a former senior deputy superintendent in the district. \u201cShe had a lot of innovative ideas. She just didn\u2019t have enough time.\u201d
I know you join me in extending USC Rossier\u2019s deepest condolences to her family. She would want us all to Fight On.

Sincerely,
Karen Symms Gallagher,
PhDEmery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean
USC Rossier School of Education<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear USC Rossier Students,It is with profound sadness that I share with you the passing of Dr. Michelle King EdD \u201917, whose\u00a0death from cancer\u00a0was announced this past weekend.As many of you know, Dr. King became a member of the Trojan family when she earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at our school in 2017. She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1088,"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/1088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.rossier.usc.edu\/edl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}