Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education Vice President Nick Melvoin ’04 spoke to the Directed Study: Public Education in America—Ideal to Reality course Feb. 9.

Before his work on the board as representative for District 4, which encompasses West Los Angeles and the West San Fernando Valley, Melvoin attended Harvard College, received his law degree at New York University and worked as an LAUSD teacher.

Melvoin said he is envious of the high school students who have the opportunity to take the public education directed study and said he hopes he can make a positive impact on his listeners.

“The opportunity to come back and talk a little bit about my journey with students whose seats I [once sat] in was important to me,” Melvoin said. “I knew that I would meet some great students and leaders, learn, get to answer some questions, hopefully clarify some things and maybe inspire some folks to go to the path of politics or education or both.”

Associate Head of School Laura Ross, who teaches the course, said she hopes that students from a private institution like the school can gain a better grasp on the education system across the country through the directed study.

“I hope that [students] see that a strong education system for all students in the United States is central to our democracy and that we are falling short in this fundamental promise in many ways in our country,” Ross said. “I also want them to understand that these are incredibly complicated issues with no easy solutions and that we look together as a class at various efforts on the local, state and national level to help improve our situation.”

Junior Prefect Yoshimi Kimura ’23 said she enjoyed the class discussion with Melvoin.

“I thought he was a very charismatic speaker who understood the complexities of his constituency well,” Kimura said. “To have such a nuanced perspective on both private and public education having come from private schools himself made our discussion with him engaging, informative and inspiring.”