Renita Thukral

Renita Thukral is the senior director of legal affairs at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. She develops and coordinates the Alliance of Public Charter School Attorneys--the membership organization that convenes public charter school attorneys. Thukral also examines the civil rights, fiscal equity and labor/employment issues confronting public charter schools.  Prior to her work with the NAPCS, she was the Policy Director at the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools and prior to that, the Director of Policy and Advocacy at New Schools for New Orleans. While in New Orleans, she taught as an adjunct professor at Loyola University School of Law and published an article titled, “The Unique System of Charter Schools in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina:  Distinctive Structure, Familiar Challenges.” Before entering the charter school world, Renita was a public defender in New York City, practicing at the trial and appellate levels in state and federal courts.  She clerked for the Honorable Robert W. Sweet, in federal district court in the Southern District of New York; She earned her Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School and her Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University; and, she taught junior high math in Los Altos, California, before attending law school.