R. Bruce Rich Elected as Chair of EL Education Board of Directors

NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning), a leading K-12 non-profit organization, has elected R. Bruce Rich as Chair of its Board of Directors. Rich, a senior partner and Co-Head of the Intellectual Property & Media Practice at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, succeeds Virginia (Ginger) Hill Worden. Worden will continue to serve on the Board of Directors as Chair Emerita.

The Board also elected Tracey Riese, President and Founder of strategy and branding consultancy T.G. Riese & Associates, to serve as Vice Chair of EL Education. Riese joined the Board in 2013, has served on the Finance Committee and led the organization's rebranding initiative. Riese currently serves on the boards of the Brooklyn Museum and Sarah Lawrence College.

Rich joined the EL Education Board of Directors in 2002. He has been a member of the Executive, Finance and Strategy Committees and served as Vice Chair of the Board for the past nine years. Rich has overseen his law firm's pro-bono legal assistance for the organization.

Rich is a nationally recognized expert in intellectual property and has served as lead trial counsel in cases for, among other clients, Alibaba, eBay, the Copyright Clearance Center, HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, Random House, The Walt Disney Company, Pandora Media, and Reuters. For many years, he was counsel to the Association of American Publisher's First Amendment Committee. In this role as well as with myriad media clients, he worked to protect speech and press freedoms, including working to defend against school book censorship. Rich serves as Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is a member of the Counsels' Council of Lincoln Center and the Board of Advisors of the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

Rich is a proud graduate of the New York City public school system, having attended Hunter College Elementary School and Bronx High School of Science. He credits his schooling with infusing a lifelong love of learning that drives his dedication to the work of EL Education.

"The work of EL Education to join character and academics in purposeful learning in public schools has never been more important. I am honored to be succeeding Ginger Worden as Chair of the Board of EL Education, and I look forward to continuing to work with her and our dedicated board to scale EL Education's impact in urban and rural communities across our nation," Rich said.

Worden, a founding member of the Board of Directors, was an advisor for the original proposal for "Expeditionary Learning" that won the New American Schools Development Corporation competition for "Break the Mold" school designs in 1992. She served as Chair of the Board of Directors since 2008.

Early in Worden's tenure as Chair, Scott Hartl was named President & CEO of EL Education — under his leadership, the organization's impact has expanded nationally. In 2014, Worden led EL Education's successful private sector fundraising effort to secure an Investing in Innovation (i3) Award from the U.S. Department of Education. In 2015, she shepherded the organization through a name change from Expeditionary Learning to EL Education. Most recently, Worden oversaw the organization's adoption of a four-year strategic plan that prioritizes innovations that drive impact -- including credentialing for its national network of district and charter public schools and the development of an exemplary open-source K-8 Language Arts curriculum.

"Ginger is a champion for equity in education, and she has been dedicated to our mission in K-12 public education since we began 25 years ago," said Scott Hartl, EL Education's President & CEO. "I speak for all of us at EL Education when I express how deeply grateful we are for her service and leadership as Chair over the past nine years. Ginger has led us through a period of remarkable growth and innovation that have strengthened our work and spread our expanded vision for student achievement."

About EL Education
EL Education creates great public schools where they are needed most, inspiring teachers and students to achieve more than they thought possible.

Created over 25 years ago through the collaboration of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Outward Bound, EL Education's research-based approach challenges and empowers teachers and students. The model focuses on ensuring that all students master rigorous content, develop positive character, and produce high-quality work. 

EL Education transforms classrooms in thousands of schools and districts across the country through a unique combination of challenge and joy in learning. Students' impressive results encompass high academic achievement and college readiness, pride in the mastery of complex, authentic work, and a passion and capacity to contribute to a better world.

EL Education works with all kinds of schools: district and charter, from pre-K through 12th grade, serving populations that reflect the diversity of our country. It creates powerful resources--including an open-access literacy curriculum in use in more than 600 districts across 44 states--provides masterful coaching and professional development, and shares a portfolio of award-winning, educator-developed materials. One reason for its success: its work is informed by decades of learning in its national network of over 150 high-achieving public schools.

For more information, visit www.ELeducation.org.

SOURCE EL Education

Related Links

http://www.ELeducation.org