BURLINGAME - Lake County teacher Larry Allen and Burbank educator Bonnie Shatun are the newly elected members of the Board of Directors for the 335,000-member California Teachers Association - the largest state teacher organization in the country.
A public school teacher for 20 years, Allen will represent CTA members in nine Northern California counties: Marin, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte. Shatun has 32 years of teaching experience and will represent educators in parts of Los Angeles and Kern counties, and all of Mono and Inyo counties.
Elected recently by the CTA State Council of Education, the union's top governing body, Allen and Shatun will take office on Thursday. Shatun will serve a full three-year term on the Board, while Allen will serve the remaining two years of the Board seat that was held by CTA Secretary-Treasurer-elect Dean E. Vogel.
Allen is a teacher at Loconoma Valley High School in rural Middletown, Lake County.
Teaching is all in the family for Allen, whose wife, Sue Allen, is a kindergarten teacher. They live in Cobb in Lake County, where he taught elementary school for many years and was named conference high school wrestling coach of the year. Allen is currently serving on the National Education Association Board of Directors, was a delegate to the CTA State Council, and was co-president of the Middletown Teachers Association.
A resident of Sherman Oaks, Shatun was a long-time officer of the Burbank Teachers Association and, as president, led that chapter of CTA on a successful strike in 1980. A second-grade teacher at Bret Harte Elementary in Burbank Unified, she was chair of the CTA statewide committee that helps teachers pass local school bonds and elect pro-education school board candidates. She is also active in the California Democratic Party, and served for many years as a delegate to the CTA State Council and the National Education Association Representative Assembly.