Industry News
The Learning Accelerator Appoints Superintendent, Instructional Technologist to Board
The Learning Accelerator (TLA), a national nonprofit organization that develops blended and personalized learning solutions, has appointed two new members to its board of directors, including a seasoned superintendent and an instructional technology expert.
First, Cary Matsuoka, a former teacher with 17 years of teaching experience and a district leader, has joined the board. Matsuoka is currently the superintendent for the Santa Barbara Unified School District, where he has lead several blended learning efforts. Prior to this position, he was a superintendent at Los Gatos-Saratoga High School District and Milpitas Unified School District, according to a prepared statement from TLA.
Beth Rabbitt, CEO of TLA, said in a statement that Matsuoka “brings critical expertise about the opportunities and challenges leaders face as they move to blended and personalized approaches. This perspective is critical to our work at TLA helping to transform public school districts.”
“I am delighted to join the board of directors of The Learning Accelerator,” said Matsuoka. “Blended and personalized learning hold great promise for education and TLA will be a catalyst for change in schools across the nation.”
Next, the board has appointed Al Motley, an expert in education technology whose experience includes working with charter schools that are implementing blended and personalized learning. He is the current chief technology officer of Matchbook Learning (ML), a nonprofit charter management organization, where he oversees ML’s and schools’ IT hardware, software and instructional technology needs. Additionally, he helps identify and deploy new tools and platforms “to maximize staff and student daily technology use,” according to a statement. For the last few years, for example, Motley has helped the nonprofit create Spark, “a next-generation competency-based platform that enables organizations to deliver personalized instruction, content and classroom workflows.” Prior to ML, he worked in a similar capacity at Touchstone Education and Mastery Charter Schools, where he served as the director of information technology.
"As a technologist and system leader, Al works daily at the nexus of IT strategy, product design and academics. He understands this work at the classroom and network level and will bring tremendous knowledge to the TLA Board," commented Rabbitt.
To learn more, visit the TLA website.