Governing Board

Cynthia Glover

CCEE Governing Board Chair

Cynthia Glover Woods is a collaborative leader who is passionate about educational equity for all students and the development of strong educational leaders. Dr. Glover Woods has worked as an instructional assistant, teacher, curriculum specialist, principal, professional development coordinator, curriculum director, and assistant superintendent of instructional services. She also served as the Chief Academic Officer of the Riverside County Office of Education, a position she held until her retirement. Dr. Glover Woods currently serves as vice-president of the California State Board of Education. Read More

Tony Thurmond

CCEE Governing Board Member

Tony Thurmond was sworn in as the 28th California State Superintendent of Public Instruction on January 7, 2019. Superintendent Thurmond is an educator, social worker, and public school parent, who has served the people of California for more than ten years in elected office. Previously, Superintendent Thurmond served on the Richmond City Council, West Contra Costa Unified School Board, and in the California State Assembly, representing District 15. Like many of California’s public school students, Superintendent Thurmond came from humble beginnings. His mother was an immigrant from Panama who came to San Jose, California, to be a teacher. STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

Tony Thurmond was sworn in as the 28th California State Superintendent of Public Instruction on January 7, 2019.

Superintendent Thurmond is an educator, social worker, and public school parent, who has served the people of California for more than ten years in elected office. Previously, Superintendent Thurmond served on the Richmond City Council, West Contra Costa Unified School Board, and in the California State Assembly, representing District 15.

Like many of California’s public school students, Superintendent Thurmond came from humble beginnings. His mother was an immigrant from Panama who came to San Jose, California, to be a teacher. His father was a soldier who didn’t return to his family after the Vietnam War. Superintendent Thurmond met him for the first time when he was an adult. After Superintendent Thurmond’s mother died when he was 6, he and his brother were raised by a cousin who they had never met.

Superintendent Thurmond’s family relied on public assistance programs and great public schools to get out of poverty. Superintendent Thurmond’s public school education allowed him to attend Temple University, where he became study body president. He went on to earn dual master’s degrees in Law and Social Policy and Social Work (MSW) from Bryn Mawr College and began a career dedicated to service.

Much of Superintendent Thurmond’s social service work has focused on improving the services provided to foster youth and directing programs that provide job training to at-risk youth. He also led programs to provide help for individuals with developmental disabilities. Tony has 12 years of direct experience in education, teaching life skills classes, after-school programs, and career training.

Superintendent Thurmond served on the Richmond City Council from 2005-2008. While on the council he served as Liaison to Richmond’s Youth Commission and Workforce Investment Board and the Council Liaison to the West Contra Costa Unified School District. He was chair of Richmond’s 2005 Summer Youth Program which employed 200 local teens.

Superintendent Thurmond served from 2008-2012 on the West Contra Costa School Board, where he coordinated a plan to keep schools open during the 2008 recession.

Superintendent Thurmond helped restore fiscal solvency and local control to the School Board, while supporting campaigns to put millions of dollars toward preserving counseling, after-school, music, and athletic programs. Under Superintendent Thurmond’s leadership, the School Board rebuilt dozens of schools to provide state-of-the-art student learning facilities.

Superintendent Thurmond funded programs to help students learn about and apply to top universities. He also led efforts to expand drug and alcohol treatment services for youth, and to bring nutrition and wellness programs to schools. Additionally, Superintendent Thurmond spearheaded a campaign that reduced school suspensions by 27%.

In the State Assembly, Superintendent Thurmond served on the Assembly Education, Health, and Human Services Committees. He chaired the Assembly Labor Committee and the Assembly Select Committee on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education.

Education is at the core of Superintendent Thurmond’s legislative record. He authored legislation that successfully expanded the free lunch program, bilingual education, and the Chafee Grant college scholarship program for foster youth. Additionally, Superintendent Thurmond’s legislation guaranteed preferential voting rights for student school board members, improved access to families for early education and childcare, and shifted millions of dollars directly from prisons to schools. Superintendent Thurmond introduced legislation to expand STEM education, improve school conditions for LGBTQ youth, and tax private prisons to fund early education and afterschool programs.

In recognition of his social service leadership, Superintendent Thurmond has been a Fellow in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Children and Family Fellowship program.

Superintendent Thurmond lives in Richmond with his two daughters who attend local public schools. They are his inspiration and a constant reminder about the promise of our neighborhood schools and the strong future that every child deserves.

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Dr. Ed Manansala

CCEE Governing Board Member

Dr. Ed Manansala serves as the El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools. His tenure has been marked by an unwavering commitment to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential and experience a high-performing educational system. Dr. Ed Manansala serves as the El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools. His tenure has been marked by an unwavering commitment to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential and experience a high-performing educational system.

He began his career addressing systemic barriers to learning with the Sacramento City Unified School District, one of the oldest K-12 urban districts in the western United States, serving over 40,000 students. He then transitioned to the role of Principal and Superintendent of St. HOPE Public Schools. While Principal of Sacramento High, the school demonstrated significant growth in academic achievement, graduation rates, and a four-year college acceptance rate, increasing from 25% to 75% over five years.

A recognized leader in education, Dr. Manansala has held various state and local leadership roles. He has served as President of the California County Superintendents, Vice Chair of the California State Board of Education’s California Practitioners Advisory Group, and as a member of the Marshall Medical Center Board of Directors. He served as the Board President of the Boys & Girls Club of El Dorado County, and is on the El Dorado County and El Dorado Hills Chamber of Commerce boards. He was appointed by the California Senate to the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence Governing Board. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration and his Masters of Social Work (MSW) at California State University, Sacramento, and his Doctorate of Education (EdD) at the University of California, Davis.

In El Dorado County, educators aspire to create one of the finest education systems in the nation. Under Dr. Manansala’s leadership, current key priorities for systemic improvement in El Dorado County include focusing on coherence in math from preschool through third grade, opening Mountainside Middle College High School, and launching the El Dorado County Office of Education’s Teacher Residency Program. Read More

Mark Luque

CCEE Governing Board Member

Mark Luque was appointed superintendent of the Bakersfield City School District on June 1, 2021. A product of the district, Superintendent Luque has drawn from his experiences as a child to forge new paths and partnerships to ensure student success through engagement in learning and an investment in the community. Luque is committed to providing every child with the tools necessary to succeed, equipping students with the 21st Century skills that are critically important in today’s world. Luque is currently laying the foundation of a strong culture of literacy in which every student will be able to read at or above grade level, helping to mitigate learning loss while simultaneously setting students on a path of achievement and success. Read More

Marina Santos

CCEE Governing Board Member

Marina is an English teacher at Fresno High School, the first high school in the Fresno Unified School District. Her extensive teaching experience dates back to the early 2000s, when she began tutoring at Fresno High as a Fresno State English tutor under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Godfrey, Professor of English and Director of the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project. Marina’s student experience with secondary teachers and low-income students inspired her to pursue a teaching credential. Marina’s teaching career began at a local public charter school for at-risk, marginalized students. There, she created her own English curriculum, taught English, coached girls’ basketball, and coordinated school-wide assessments. This experience showed her how high student transiency and poverty can be ameliorated by wrap-around resources that can have a huge positive impact on students. Marina is an English teacher at Fresno High School, the first high school in the Fresno Unified School District. Her extensive teaching experience dates back to the early 2000s, when she began tutoring at Fresno High as a Fresno State English tutor under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Godfrey, Professor of English and Director of the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project. Marina’s student experience with secondary teachers and low-income students inspired her to pursue a teaching credential. Marina’s teaching career began at a local public charter school for at-risk, marginalized students. There, she created her own English curriculum, taught English, coached girls’ basketball, and coordinated school-wide assessments. This experience showed her how high student transiency and poverty can be ameliorated by wrap-around resources that can have a huge positive impact on students.

Shortly after, Marina enrolled in a Masters of Education/Administrative Credential program at Fresno Pacific University (FPU). An FPU instructor encouraged her to accept a teaching position at Dinuba High School, a rural school. It was at Dinuba High School where Marina evolved into a writing teacher. She was invited to the 2013 Invitational Summer Institute, a program offered by the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project. The Writing Project rejuvenated her commitment to the power of writing in the classroom and highlighted the importance of advocating for teachers who do not have access to quality professional development opportunities.

As a result of building relationships with other literacy leaders, published authors, and education consultants, she was entrusted with chairing the Yosemite Conference, a literacy conference that provided focused, professional learning opportunities across disciplines. Marina organized the conference from concept to execution in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2019. Some of her proudest moments occur when new teachers express the idea that they will definitely use something that they have learned in their classrooms.

Marina’s advocacy for English teachers has expanded into advocacy for all teachers as a Fresno Teachers Association (FTA) Director-at-Large. Her voice in FTA has come to be valued and has landed her on Fresno Unified’s Assessment Council and gotten her elected to the California Teachers Association as a delegate. As a CTA delegate, her fellow members of the Assessment Council have chosen her to serve as chair. Through her chairmanship, she presented to California educators four times a year in Los Angeles, provided testing feedback on student score reporting to the California Department of Education (CDE), and helped shape policy related to screening for reading difficulties. Her extensive work on assessment and testing led to her appointment on the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence by Assemblymember Robert Rivas.

When Marina was called upon to act for the benefit of her community, she found ways to do so on both the local and the state level. Marina lobbied in Sacramento for Assembly Bill 2901, the Pregnancy Leave for Educators Act. Her lobbying team met with fourteen senators and assembly members, and her team’s efforts garnered four coauthors for the bill. As a result of her teaching and leadership, Marina has been featured in two CTA Educator magazines. One feature highlights a COVID-19 pandemic project entitled “Carrying Stories,” which was a combination of storytelling and art that showed how students improved their sense of mental well-being, helped them develop higher self-esteem, stronger familial cohesion, and a better sense of control over their lives.

When Marina is away from the classroom, she takes pleasure in hiking local trails, spending time with her daughter Marcela, and volunteering at a local homeless shelter. She resides in Fresno, California, her hometown, where she is committed to eradicating generational poverty through literacy and her public service. Read More