District J
CTA Board member Mary Rose Ortega, a third-grade teacher at First Street Elementary in Los Angeles Unified School District, is serving her third three-year term on the Board, which expires June 25, 2014.
Ortega, who has 37 years of teaching experience, represents educators in LAUSD on the Board. For eight years, she was on the United Teachers Los Angeles Board of Directors, and was chair of the UTLA political action committee. She is the CTA Board liaison to the union’s State Council of Education Curriculum and Instruction Committee, and is involved on planning committees for the CTA annual Good Teaching conferences, Summer Institute and Presidents Conference. She serves as the board liaison to the QEIA Committee and the Teacher Evaluation Committee. She has served on the UTLA house of representatives since 1990.
Ortega chairs the CTA Fund for Teaching. She is also a former California director on the National Education Association Board.
Ortega, who is fluent in Spanish, earned her teaching credential and bachelor’s in sociology from UCLA, and a master’s in elementary education from CSULA.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Ed, a worker's comp lawyer. Email her at mortega@cta.org.