As the Founding Principal of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Chan has pushed the limits of education and social innovation for more than 50 years as a school leader, policy maker and the founder of the first conversion charter school in the nation that now serves 3,300 low-income students (PK-12). She turned “crack houses” to school houses, established a family center with onsite health services and built a community theater, transformed gang territories to college prep laboratories, instituted longer school year and longer school day, integrated global studies and career-tech pathways into daily curriculum, provided performance pay for teachers and maximized untapped human and fiscal resources that have turned the once failing public school into a community-based learning center and the high-poverty neighborhood into an educational and economic corridor. The school was awarded the California Distinguish School and the National Blue Ribbon School Awards.
Armed with a doctoral degree from UCLA in Education, a MA degree from California State University, Northridge in Special Education, a BA degree in World Languages from UCLA, post-doctoral in Computer Science from UCLA, eight teaching and service credentials and the ability to communicate in four world languages, she is determined to turn risks into opportunities through her tenacity and forward-thinking skills to do the impossible.
Dr. Chan served as a teacher and an administrator at LAUSD for 30 years. While serving as the Principal of Vaughn, she was also an adjunct professor at California State University, Northridge and UCLA. Dr. Chan was a member of the California State Board of Education, a Commissioner of the City of Los Angeles and is a current LA County Commissioner for Public Social Services, Trustee of the Los Angeles County Board of Education, and board member of the Milken Institute. She received many awards including the Milken Educator Award, McGraw Hills Prize in Education Award, James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award, Valley of the Stars, Woman of the Year, Distinguished Alumni Award from UCLA and CSUN, and the Rose Award from USC.
Arriving in the U.S. alone at age 17 with just $100, Dr. Chan set out to pursue the American Dream – a Dream she realized and a Dream in which she now teaches countless others to aspire.
