Matt was a Faith in Action Bay Area leader for nearly 20 years, before he finally joined the organization as a community organizer in 2018. He was a teacher and principal in the San Francisco public schools for over two decades, and he now serves as an elected member of the San Francisco Board of Education.

Matt learned about the power of organizing in the early 2000s, when he and other teachers, parents, and youth came together across race, class, and language to create a vision for a more effective, community based high school. After many months of attempts, they could not get a meeting with the district superintendent. But when they announced that they were hosting a public event with 250 people and three school board members to discuss the proposed school, suddenly they had three meetings with the superintendent in two weeks. Two years later, the group opened June Jordan School for Equity, which became a nationally recognized innovative small high school. Matt knows through this experience and others like it that when people come together around common values, we can create the power necessary for real change.