User Profile

Executive Director, Great Public Schools Now

As the advocacy and policy leader for CCSA, Myrna Castrejon is charged with creating a policy and funding environment that allows existing high-performing public charter schools to thrive and replicate while attracting new operators to open schools across the state. Castrejon has served with CCSA in various key leadership roles since its founding in late 2003. Most recently, she led the Achievement and Performance Management team and the Zoom! Data Source student data performance management program. In the late 1990s-early 2000s, Castrejon served as a consultant to the state-funded Urban Education Partnership/LAUSD, as Vice President of School and Family Networks for the Los Angeles Alliance for Student Achievement, and as the Director for Family Engagement for the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project. Prior to coming to Los Angeles, Castrejon spearheaded parent and community engagement efforts at the El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence. She served for 10 years as a key education leader, supporting organizing strategies for the Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation and its statewide Alliance Schools Initiative to develop parent, teacher and community capacity to transform low-performing schools. An experienced trainer and public speaker, Castrejon leads professional development seminars, delivers keynote presentations and makes media appearances, particularly on matters of Latino student achievement and effective parent and civic engagement in transforming public education. Castrejon served as Vice President and then a term as President of the National Board of Parents for Public Schools, a network of twenty-four local organizations that support public education reform across the United States. She is a fellow of the Aspen Pahara Education Fellowship's eighth class and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.