Rich Carreon 

Rich Carreon has served as a health, life science, physical education teacher, assistant principal and principal at the junior and senior high school levels. Now he serves as an Executive Leadership Coach at the San Diego Office of Education, where one of his primary roles is supporting leaders with their preliminary and clear administrative credentials. 

But, after 27 years in public education, Carreon said he still had more to learn.

“In all of my work I keep that equity lens of looking at our historically underserved students. I wanted to learn a little more as far as the language, policies and practices that support them so that I’ll be able to effectively engage in conversations with leaders, districts, and communities,” he said.

In the USC Rossier DEI certificate program, discussions and readings about belonging and mattering made a deep impression on him.

“We leaned heavily into the difference between belonging and mattering,” he said, recalling a presentation by USC Rossier Associate Professor Darnell Cole, who co-directs Rossier’s Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice. “You can have a sense of belonging, but mattering is when somebody really takes the time to care for you. How do we create that, in a student-level relationship or with an adult, like a staff member?”

Besides working with administrators in the credentialing process, Carreon provides customized coaching to districts on initiatives such as Ninth Grade On-Track, a program to help freshmen make a successful transition to high school and graduate on time. He said the Rossier program underscored the importance of strategies that help educators build caring bonds with students, such as student shadowing, which involves close observation of a student’s school experience.

“Students are smart,” Carreon said. “They know when they matter. They know when they don’t. There’s a higher level of academic success when they know they matter.” 

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