Alex Caputo Pearl

Alex Caputo Pearl is the President of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). Alex taught for 22 years in the Compton and Los Angeles school districts and was also deeply involved in helping build the work of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union, as well as helping to found Coalition for Educational Justice, the Crenshaw Cougar Coalition, and the Extended Learning Cultural Model. Since becoming UTLA president in 2014, Alex is proud of many accomplishments that have been collectively achieved. These include moving UTLA to a fighting, social movement union model; empowering educators through Contract Action Teams and other structures; forming Reclaim Our Schools LA with parents, youth, and community organizations; overwhelmingly passing the Build the Future Fund the Fight initiative to make UTLA financially solvent and a merged AFT/NEA local; and, UTLA playing a key role as in the national Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools. Alex earned a BA in Political Science at Brown University and an MA in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA. He has written for many publications, guest lectured on labor and community organizing at various Los Angeles area universities, and is active in CFT, CTA, AFT, and NEA, including being on the AFT Executive Council.