Cecily A. Myart-Cruz

Cecily Myart-Cruz is a teacher, activist and the first woman of color to serve as president of the United Teachers Los Angeles.

She has been an educator for 29 years, at both the elementary and middle school levels, most recently at Angeles Mesa Elementary School. Before being elected UTLA president, she served as UTLA West Area chair and as a National Education Association vice president. As area chair, she organized boycotts of over-testing and worked with parents, students, educators and the community to bring about their collaboration on creating healthy schools.

Myart-Cruz is no stranger to taking direct action, whether it is fighting against co-locations by charter operators, demanding ethnic studies for students, working to stop the criminalization of children, or leading local and state lobbying efforts for more funding.

She took office as UTLA president in July 2020, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. She led the fight that organized UTLA members and school families behind the strongest COVID-19 health and safety measures in the country. That work led to a series of agreements with the Los Angeles Unified School District that kept it one of the safest big-city school systems nationwide.

She is committed to creating safe, just and supportive learning environments so that every student can learn in an affirming, well-resourced neighborhood school. In 2021, she oversaw the democratic development of the Beyond Recovery Platform, created by UTLA members, parents and community allies to address the urgent needs of our students at a time when historic levels of funding were coming to school districts.

Myart-Cruz is the former chair of the National Education Association Black Caucus and is a member of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. She has helped shape the racial justice work of UTLA through critical dialogue, workshops, forums and conferences—all while keeping students front and center. Last, she has continued to build strength and power for UTLA through a strong relationship with local, state and national union leaders.

She is the proud mother of one child, Giovanni, a student in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

January 2025