LaShawn Routé-Chatmon, executive director of Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools, has worked on several large-scale school reform initiatives and contributed to the creation of over thirty new schools in the Bay Area. Currently she supports district and school leaders in the management and improvement of new high schools. As part of her work, Ms. Routé-Chatmon oversees the training of Oakland school principals in current approaches to school improvement with a focus on raising achievement of all students regardless of race or class background.

Ms. Routé-Chatmon served at one time as a teacher leader at Berkeley High School, where she was also a summer school principal and the codirector of the Diversity Project, a collaborative reform effort with the University of California, Berkeley that addressed the ways that racial inequality is manifested in high schools.