Modesto City Schools Board Member Leads New Officers at CSBA
West Sacramento – The California School Boards Association announces the election of a new slate of officers to lead the organization in the year ahead. The leaders include Cindy Marks, Jo Lucey, Jesús M. Holguín, and Jill Wynns. Together, they offer the association an incredible depth of educational leadership experience, broad professional expertise, and a wide variety of perspectives from throughout the state. The officers were recently approved by the association’s governing body, the Delegate Assembly, including nearly 300 delegates representing the association’s more than 5,500 governance team leaders from K-12 school districts and county offices of education.
Cindy Marks, a longstanding member of the Modesto City Schools Board of Education in Stanislaus County, is the 2012-13 President of the CSBA. Marks has expertise across a wide range of policy areas from school finance and fiscal reform to at-risk youth, dropout prevention and school discipline, safe schools, and state and federal legislative issues.
In addition to serving in leadership positions at a regional and statewide level with CSBA, she served on numerous county-wide committees pertaining to at-risk youth and student achievement, and was appointed by the Legislature to the “Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education – Kindergarten through University.” Marks has also received numerous citations for leadership and service, including The Hispanic Leadership Council President’s Award, the Association of Mexican American Educator’s Award, the Walter C. LaCore Christian Public Servants Award for Outstanding Public Service, and legislative and congressional awards for service to Stanislaus County youth.
Josephine (Jo) Lucey, a board member in the Cupertino Union School District, is the 2012-13 CSBA President-Elect. She has served on the CSBA Board of Directors since December 2008 and has contributed to the broader educational community in various leadership roles as president, vice president and Hoffmann Award Chair for the Santa Clara County School Boards Association; as a member of the Santa Clara Education Coalition, and as chairperson and member of the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization.
Jesús M. Holguín, a board member in the Moreno Valley Unified School District in Riverside County, is the new CSBA Vice President. Employed by the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools for 27 years, Holguín has extensive experience in school finance. He has served as president of the Riverside County School Boards Association, president of the Moreno Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for two years, and board member of ACCESS to the Future.
Jill Wynns, a board member in the San Francisco Unified School District in San Francisco County, rounds out the new CSBA governance body and will serve as Immediate Past President. Wynns has been a major leader in the urban education community and is an expert on California school finance, urban education reform issues and governance, charter schools, privatization of public schools, healthy school food programs and labor-management collaboration.
“I’m humbled by this honor, and commit to advancing the policy priorities of our state’s public schools with the governor and Legislature during my tenure as president,” said President Marks. “It is my privilege to support and lead the thousands of talented, dedicated school board members who are actively working with CSBA to promote the importance of public education and sound statewide educational policies.”
CSBA is the non-profit education association representing the elected officials who govern public school districts and county offices of education. CSBA brings together school governing boards, and district and county office administrators to advocate for effective policies that advance the education and well-being of the state’s more than 6 million school-age children.