Han Phung is a transformative educational leader whose career reflects an unwavering commitment to equity, instructional excellence, and organizational coherence. With over two decades of experience in public education, she has led complex urban systems through change by blending strategic management with human-centered leadership.
Previously, as Interim Chief of Secondary Schools for San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), Han Phung managed five executive leaders overseeing 30 secondary schools serving 25,000 students. In this role, she spearheaded a comprehensive staffing realignment that reduced a $7 million structural deficit while protecting student programs. She implemented data-driven strategies—including an on-track dashboard co-developed with the Department of Assessment and Accountability—and secured $1.5 million in grants to advance project-based learning aligned to SFUSD’s Graduate Profile. Ms. Phung’s collaborative approach bridged instructional, fiscal, and operational departments, ensuring coherent implementation across a complex urban system.
As Assistant Superintendent of Middle Schools for SFUSD, Ms. Phung led one of the district’s most ambitious redesign efforts to reimagine the middle grades experience. Her leadership—highlighted in Street Data by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan—centered on expanding access to electives and intervention courses for multilingual learners and students with disabilities, while redesigning teacher schedules to enable professional collaboration and universal design for learning. Under her tenure, districtwide literacy and math proficiency increased by five percentage points overall and ten points for targeted populations. Through trauma-informed practices and Tier 1 interventions, chronic absenteeism declined from 24% to 18%, and suspensions decreased by 33%.
In her role as the Director of Teaching and Learning in Newark Unified School District, Ms. Phung cultivates principal leadership and instructional coherence across all divisions. She has fostered a culture of collaboration and transparency—resolving system-wide curriculum conflicts through shared decision-making with union partners, aligning TK–K literacy practices with the science of reading, and strengthening cross-departmental communication to ensure equitable resource distribution. Her leadership exemplifies the belief that student success begins with adult learning, shared purpose, and collective efficacy.
Currently Ms. Phung is a doctoral student in Cohort 3 of the Leaders in Equity and Democracy Program while simultaneously serving the students and families in Oakland Unified School District as the Deputy Superintendent for Alternative Schools Programs in the High School Network in Oakland Unified School District.
Ms. Phung’s leadership is grounded in transformational and systems thinking frameworks—balancing innovation with accountability, data with empathy, and equity with excellence. She is known for building bridges across departments, inspiring teams toward a shared vision, and guiding schools to become more just, joyful, and effective learning communities.
When she is not working or reading, she is enjoying meals with her husband and watching her son (14) and daughter (9) play soccer.
