Our Team

Dr. Alana Burton

Guest Teacher

Dr. Alana Burton was named Systems of Support Adviser for Los Angeles Unified School District in May, 2020. With fifteen years of service to education, she is passionately committed to positively impacting the whole individual and whole community by building sustainable equity, diversity, and inclusion; advancement; and positive empowerment business culture. Dr. Burton uses her knowledge, passion, experience, and skills to form strong relationships and build capacity and external partnerships. These meaningful relationships provide access, data driven action plans, and differentiated development to remove social-emotional barriers. Her previous roles contributed to her visionary leadership: board member, union chair, leadership team member, restorative justice adviser, Gifted and Talented Coordinator, School Wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Support member, Test Administrator, educator, and educational psychology leadership graduate student. Her goal is to support the whole person, whole environment, and whole community.

As Systems of Support and Restorative Justice Adviser, she collaborated with local district leadership and all school level stakeholders to build capacity and equitable inclusion to address barriers as part of the positive culture framework for settings ranging from Early Childhood Centers through High Schools. She provided access to individualized created resources based on verbal feedback and survey responses; crisis team support; risk and threat assessments; and strategic recommendations. She conducted school needs assessments, asset mapping, and lead community dialogues with external partnerships: Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles School Police, city attorneys, Gang Reduction and Youth Development Foundation, Hathaway-Sycamore Children Services, and Healthy Start Program Coordinators.

In 2018, Dr. Burton was a concurrent full-time graduate student; educator; board member; educational leader, and mother. She designed evaluation plans; created differentiated curriculum and professional development; and conducted her dissertation based on the achievement gaps she saw first-hand. She created budget options to save teaching positions and address barriers: promoting Social-Emotional Learning integration. She created data driven interventions and strategic action plans for diverse stakeholders, specialized student population, students with special needs, low-income students, gifted and talented students, teachers, and parents. She also ensured compliance of district and state policies, matched school brand with community, maintained high level of equitable inclusion, diversity, and built successful external partnerships with community members. She also assisted with planning and implementing fundraising events and increased family engagement.