Kandice McLurkin

Kandice McLurkin has over 39 years of experience creating and leading professional development for teachers, administrators, university partners and community leaders on promoting equity in the educational setting with a strong emphasis on collective teacher efficacy, culturally responsive pedagogy and fostering resiliency.

Ms. McLurkin is featured in the 2020 HBCU Calendar, Our History Today an African American Journey, for her unwavering commitment to ensuring that African American students, and all underserved student populations achieve academic success—leaving school prepared to thrive in college as well as the career of their choice and life.

Under her leadership, UCLA identified LAUSD’s Academic English Mastery Program (AEMP) as a national model in educator training and resource development that prepares educators to use culturally responsive teaching and implement academic language development instruction to help close achievement gaps for culturally and linguistically diverse students.

The culminating project from her staff’s partnership with UCLA Center X is the Academic English Mastery Resource Compendium Partnering to Support the Teaching and Learning of Standard English Learners which can be accessed on the CDE website.

Under the premise that literacy is the power-tool for equity, educators at 115 schools received training, materials and support to strengthen listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in academic English.

Examples of support provided include:

• Keynote address and Scholastic libraries from Phyllis Hunter
• Keynote address and Scholastic social emotional libraries from Byron Garrett
• Keynote address, mentor text and Scholastic libraries from Pam Allyn
• Keynote address and Scholastic libraries from David Banks
• Partnership with Harvard School of Education provided professional development and curriculum to support academic language development
• Partnership with UCLA Center X to validate and affirm quality materials developed by the AEMP staff

A former LAUSD Central Office Administrator and elementary school principal in the historic Los Angeles community of West Adams, Kandice McLurkin. was especially successful with serving African American, Latino and all  under served  students evidenced by outstanding standardized testing data.  Ms. McLurkin has worked with universities, professional organizations and all stakeholders  to embrace the research and evidence-based resources that help all students thrive.

Kandice has been recognized by numerous organizations for her courageous leadership.  She has been honored by: Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology as a Distinguished Alumna Educator, the California Association of Bilingual Educator Visionary Award, the California University of Los Angeles College of Education Distinguished Educator Award and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s Inglewood Graduate Chapter Educator of the Year.  Under Kandice McLurkin’s leadership, the California School Boards Association (CSBA) awarded AEMP the 2019 Golden Bell Award for excellence in education.