Help Ceiba Build a Culture of Excellence, Continuous Improvement and Innovation
Ceiba Public Schools starts and manages outstanding non-urban charter public schools that prepare historically underserved students to graduate from college.
Founded in 2006, Ceiba Public Schools provides quality college preparatory education for historically underserved, at-risk youth living in California’s non-urban communities. Inspired by the philosophy that all students can learn given high levels of opportunity and support, Ceiba founders launched Ceiba Prep Middle School with grades 6 and 7 in its flagship Watsonville location and graduated 160 youth in their first year. The following year, grade 8 was added to the middle school program and Ceiba College Preparatory High School opened with grade 9. This year, Ceiba scholars will complete grade 10 and we will celebrate our first high school graduating class in 2015.
With plans underway to open an elementary charter, Ceiba's vision for a full K-12 program is becoming a reality. Over the next five years, Ceiba Public Schools plans to serve up to 1,300 youth by opening a network of exceptional charter schools in communities along California’s central coast.
The City of Watsonville is located within the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) which was recently ranked 147th out of 147 large school districts in California at serving student of color. Ceiba College Prep Watsonville performs in the top 20% of schools statewide and the top 2% of schools with similar demographics, consistently ranking as the top-performing middle school in the disrict and the top school in county that serves an economically disadvantaged population. Ceiba has achieved these results despite spending $7,264 per pupil, roughly $4,000 less than the school district’s per pupil average.
Ceiba scholars outperform state and district averages in all subject areas and 99% of our students intend to complete a college education. Ceiba’s API (Academic Performance Index) ranks higher than the state average. Since its inception, Ceiba has scored 10 out of 10 on the California Similar Schools Ranking, which ranks a school’s API compared with 100 other state schools with similar demographic characteristics.
As Ceiba prepares for growth and transitions out of “start-up mode,” it aspires to be an A+ organization with a culture of excellence to recruit, retain and develop talent among its team and to build a culture of continuous improvement.
Ceiba has asked a Community Partners team to help to develop the best practices, strategy, human capital management, and innovation that will allow Ceiba to excel in its next phase of growth. The team will peform an assessment of the current organization, provide best practices from similar organizations and recommend an organizational model to help Ceiba achieve its long-term goals. We are looking for volunteers with experience in education and/or organizational and operations management.
