Attorney Mark Harris, a UC Merced continuing lecturer in economics, has been appointed to a workgroup to develop California government policy recommendations that address rising healthcare costs affecting school districts and educators.
The TK-12 Education Healthcare Cost Workgroup will bring together educators, economists and policy experts to examine the impact of increasing healthcare costs on school districts and identify solutions to help schools continue to provide quality healthcare benefits to employees and their families.
Tony Thurmond, state superintendent of public instruction, announced the workgroup appointments.
“We are all painfully aware of the rising costs of healthcare in this country, and our school districts are not immune to that strain,” Thurmond said in a statement. “School districts must be able to afford quality healthcare for their employees.”
Harris, who has taught at UC Merced since 2008, serves as director of the university’s Law Clinic, general counsel to the Fresno Unified School District and special counsel to the Sacramento City Unified School District and Twin Rivers Unified School District.
In 2023, President Joe Biden appointed Harris to the Export-Import Bank of the United States’ Council on Climate. He also recently received the inaugural National Action Network Rev. Al Sharpton Legacy Award in recognition of his work advancing civil rights and social justice.
In a statement, Harris said he accepted the appointment in honor of his late mother, who spent more than 60 years teaching in Los Angeles and Sacramento public schools and served as a leader of United Teachers Los Angeles. His wife, Marianna Harris, is UC Merced’s director of education programs and a former schoolteacher and school site leader.
“I hope that the contribution I make to the workgroup helps move the needle in a positive direction relative to healthcare finance equity for all who are within the public education ecosystem,” Harris said.
Thurmond announced plans to form the workgroup in early April, about a week after the end of a 12-day teachers strike in the Sacramento region’s Twin Rivers Unified School District. Teachers in the 49-school district walked out in a contract dispute over healthcare coverage, wages and class sizes.
