UCSD - University of California - San Diego

10/20/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/20/2026 07:40

From Tutors to School Leaders, UC San Diego Education Studies Shapes the Region’s Classrooms

Published Date

October 20, 2026

Article Content

At schools across San Diego County, students from the University of California San Diego are doing more than observing classrooms. They are tutoring, mentoring, learning from local educators and beginning to see themselves as part of the region's education system.

For many, that entry point is Partners at Learning, known as PAL, UC San Diego's largest service-learning program. Through PAL, undergraduates work with local P-12 students and schools while earning course credit and gaining hands-on experience in education.

PAL is one piece of a much larger effort from the Department of Education Studies at UC San Diego to help shape education across the region at nearly every stage of the educator pathway.

Students may begin by tutoring in local classrooms. Some go on to major or minor in Education Studies. Others enter the Teacher Education Program, become classroom teachers, return for professional learning through CREATE, the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment and Teaching Excellence, pursue an EdD or PhD, or move into leadership roles as principals, district administrators and superintendents.

"Our programs serve as a pathway for our students to help shape the education landscape in San Diego," said Megan Hopkins, chair of the Department of Education Studies within the School of Social Sciences. "Somebody could come into our undergraduate program, major, minor or just take our PAL courses, and decide they want to be in education - whether that's as a teacher or someone who works in policy or something else."

EDS has deep and varied touchpoints across the San Diego education landscape, and the department is working to broaden its partnerships across the region.

Those partnerships extend from undergraduate learning to teacher preparation, educational leadership, professional development and research designed in collaboration with schools, districts and policymakers.

"Our goal is improving the quality of education across the region," Hopkins said, "through tutors, teachers and leaders."

For Thuy-An Tran, a fourth-year clinical psychology major and education studies minor, the Partners at Learning program helped clarify the kind of work she wants to do after UC San Diego.

Where Future Educators Get Their Start

For undergraduates, PAL often provides the first hands-on experience in local classrooms. The program introduces students to theoretical and practical issues in P-12 education by combining academic coursework with fieldwork. Many students who enroll are education studies majors or minors, but others come from across UC San Diego and discover an interest in education through the experience.

For Thuy-An Tran, a fourth-year clinical psychology major and education studies minor, PAL helped clarify the kind of work she wants to do after UC San Diego.

"The beautiful thing about PAL is how it connects underserved schools with amazing tutors," Tran said. "It is a service-learning experience that teaches students social-emotional learning and new ways to interact with and support students in the classroom. It's all about being a good mentor and that has been so fulfilling. I also had opportunities to learn from and connect with the families and communities of the schools we serve, which was really special to me."

After graduation, Tran hopes to work in a school setting, possibly as a teacher before pursuing graduate study to become a school psychologist or school social worker.

The impact is twofold, Hopkins said. UC San Diego students gain real-world experience working with young people, while local schools receive support from undergraduates who can serve as tutors and mentors.

"We are helping address the teacher shortage by preparing those people and supporting current teachers by having tutors in their classrooms," Hopkins said.

The department's Teacher Education Program is another major point of regional impact.

One of the program's strengths, she said, is the depth of clinical practice teacher candidates receive in local schools.

"They get a lot of clinical practice that is tightly woven into their supervision and coursework," Hopkins said.

Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego

From Classroom Educators to District Leaders

The department's reach does not end once educators enter the classroom. Through CREATE, the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment and Teaching Excellence, UC San Diego supports K-12 students, teachers, families, schools, districts and community organizations in the San Diego and Imperial Valley regions. CREATE also helps UC San Diego faculty and students design and execute funded programming that responds to local K-12 education needs.

"CREATE serves in-service teachers and in-service leaders and provides a lot of professional learning opportunities," Hopkins said. "There are a lot of ways we could use these partner sites to bring EDS and CREATE together more."

That matters because the department is not only preparing future teachers; it is also supporting educators throughout their careers.

A student may begin as an undergraduate tutor, become a teacher candidate, enter the classroom, receive professional learning support, and later pursue advanced study or leadership training. The department's EdD program prepares education leaders, many of whom are already working in San Diego schools and districts.

"Most, if not all, of our students are current educators in San Diego who then go on to higher-level leadership positions or have greater impact in their current positions," Hopkins said. "We tend to attract people who want to make education better in San Diego."

The department's EdD alumni include six district superintendents and five assistant or deputy assistant superintendents, representing 11 graduates who have served or are serving in superintendent-level leadership roles across the region.

"Our program is designed to improve and expand educational opportunities in the region," Hopkins said. "People we recruit into the program tend to be people who are working in San Diego and are committed to staying in San Diego and doing that work."

Research That Solves Real Education Challenges

That regional commitment also shapes the department's research. Hopkins said one of EDS' defining strengths is its use of research-practice partnerships, or RPPs - long-term collaborations between researchers and practitioners or policymakers that are designed around real problems faced by schools, districts, state agencies or communities.

"We do research for and with communities, whether that is a school, district, state education agency or community organization," Hopkins said. "We don't just go in and say, 'We want to collect this data and write a paper about it.'"

Instead, she said, EDS researchers ask partners what challenges they are facing, what issues they want to address and what they want to understand more deeply. Then they work together to define the research questions.

For Hopkins, that approach is not abstract. Her own work focuses on multilingual learners and the policies that shape their educational opportunities. She leads a research-practice partnership with staff in about 30 state departments of education across the country, helping leaders build capacity and produce evidence-based resources to support English learners. For example, she is working with the Massachusetts Department of Education on bilingual education policy and access for English learners.

Hopkins has received two nearly $1 million grants from the Institute of Education Sciences to study bilingual education policy and access for English learners in Massachusetts.

The first, a $993,000 IES-funded project, examined whether the expansion of bilingual programming in Massachusetts is supporting equitable access for multilingual learners - the students the policy was intended to serve. The newer three-year, $999,500 grant builds on that work by examining another challenge in the state: the nature and impact of bilingual teacher shortages over time.

Together, the projects reflect Hopkins' broader research focus on multilingual learners, education policy and the systems needed to grow a strong bilingual teacher workforce.

That kind of work reflects what Hopkins sees as a throughline in the department: research that is collaborative, equity-focused and connected to real educational systems.

"It is also grounded in principles of equity," Hopkins said, "in terms of whose voices are heard and valued in the research process."

Why This Work Matters Now

The department's work comes at a moment when education is under intense pressure - from teacher shortages to political division to widening debates over what schools should teach and how they should serve students.

For Hopkins, that makes the work of preparing teachers, leaders and education researchers even more important.

"The education system is the most important tool we have to create a civic-minded populace," Hopkins said. "Having teachers and leaders who know how to design systems and who know how to design a classroom to support equitable interactions and meaningful exchange between students and talking across viewpoints - that's important."

The department's commitment to helping prepare the people who tutor, teach, study, support and lead the region's classrooms is unwavering, but its impact is not confined to one program or one district. It stretches from the border to North County, and through research partnerships and faculty work, far beyond San Diego.

Read more news about: School of Social Sciences

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