Bray is CSBA’s general counsel, ELA director
Published: February 27, 2012
Keith Bray joined CSBA as general counsel last November, providing legal counsel to CSBA leadership, management and member districts. He oversees legal department programs, services and activities and provides hands-on strategic advice about all legal matters affecting the association.
In addition, Bray serves as the director of CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance, a consortium of school districts, county offices of education and regional occupational centers/programs that pool resources to pursue and defend a broad spectrum of statewide public education interests in the courts and before state agencies. The Alliance has a history of both saving and generating millions of dollars for schools while protecting the governance role of the school boards.
Bray comes to CSBA with more than 23 years of experience in the areas of labor negotiations, personnel matters, contract preparation and review, media outreach, policy updates and development, special education, facility construction and leases, open meeting laws, charter schools and administrative hearings. He is the former chief of staff and general counsel for the Placer County Office of Education, where he oversaw litigation and was legal counsel for the Placer County Board of Education; the self-described “grizzled veteran” also has worked extensively in private practice. Bray lives in Elk Grove with his wife of 29 years, Susana, and is the father of three.
Bray is just CSBA’s fourth general counsel. John Bukey became the first after previously providing services on a contract basis. Following his 2009 retirement, Education Legal Alliance Director Richard Hamilton succeeded Bukey until he too retired. Abe Hajela, a CSBA staffer in the 1990s who continued to work closely with the association after he left, served briefly following Hamilton’s retirement but has since returned to School Innovations and Advocacy; he’ll continue to work with CSBA on important issues such as Robles-Wong v. California, the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s system of school finance.