By: Cintia Lopez-Montes, Communications Coordinator
Cradle-to-Career convened its Governing Board (Board) on August 12, 2026 in Sacramento. Some of the highlights included the swearing in of a new Board member, the elections for Board Chair and Vice-Chair, celebrating C2C’s 5-year anniversary, approval of C2C’s annual work plan, and voting to add a new data partner.
Government Operations Agency Secretary, Nick Maduros, swore Elizabeth Elias into the Board. Elias was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in July 2026 as the Bureau Chief of the California Bureau for Postsecondary Education, which she will be representing on the Board.
The annual elections for Board Chair and Vice-Chair were then held, with Gavin Payne and Robert Tagorda elected as Board Chair and Vice-Chair, respectively.
Chair Payne and Executive Director Mary Ann Bates gave their updates following the election.
Chair Payne touched on C2C Forward, and the use of ECMC and College Futures Foundation grants to start recruiting for C2C’s Data Fellows Program. He also acknowledged Advisory Board Liaisons, Chris Nellum, and Ana Luz Gonzalez-Vasquez, and the nine data providers who attended the Q&A session during our Joint Advisory Board meeting in June.
Director Bates began her Executive Director update by highlighting C2C’s 5-year anniversary and talked about the clear vision for the next five years. The Office is working on two new dashboards: a teacher training and retention dashboard and a transfer outcomes dashboard.
Director Bates also highlighted C2C’s work with the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC). C2C provided CSAC with institution-level data reports describing postsecondary outcomes and state aid utilization. The project helped the public higher education segments and CSAC comply with their required legislative reporting.
“I also wanted to uplift the work with the partners and on the SB70 data collection, which was the first time we partnered with Cradle-to-Career to fulfill a statutory reporting requirement to the Student Aid Commission,” Member Christopher Furgiele said. “And not only did it go smoothly and save us a lot of time, but it really gave us a new partner to work with who understands that data from a statewide perspective as much, or better, than we do. So we can work better with the Student Aid Commission, explain what they’re seeing in the data, and I think it’s going to end up resulting in a much better final product for the state than it ever had before.”
Director of Engagement, Shannon Serrato, and Deputy Director of Communications, Angelique Palomar, presented alongside Director Bates and Chair Payne about engagement strategies, outreach, and community-driven delivery methods. Serrato added the importance of knowing that every form of engagement C2C receives represents a person and an opportunity to build a relationship.
“Five years ago, when we first started this work, you look at the Data Quality Campaign and they labeled California as having one of the worst, if not the worst, (data) systems in the country,” Tagorda said. “Fast forward to where we are today and it’s a leading example of the kind of work that all states should be doing. And that doesn’t happen by accident. It happens with a lot of strategic thinking, intentionality, and hard work. We’re now at a point where it is institutionalized. We have some successes and wins upon which to build and we’ve got a new strategic plan moving forward. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this institution is here to stay and a force to be reckoned with. (C2C is) working with people on the people’s data. I know it’s a heavy lift for the team, it’s evident for the board, but I think it’s crucial for us to continue to demonstrate the value that we’re bringing for Californians in this state.”
The Board moved on to discuss the Budget Change Concept and the 12-month Work Plan, which was presented by Director of Operations, Lesley Taylor.
Taylor added context on how this year’s budget request process is affected by the upcoming gubernatorial election, which means this year’s budget policy letter asks for only workload and necessary technical requests until the new administration provides subsequent direction.
Chair Payne then led the discussion of the proposed resolution and the policy paper that outlines C2C’s work with the Jobs and Opportunity Hub, which would release data reports and custom data cuts that Californians can use to inform their decisions about education and career pathways.
The policy paper also includes an overview of C2C’s Data Insights and Research Gateway, and the Data Privacy and Security Accelerator. Both would allow for more collaboration with data partners as well as public analysis.
The Board approved the budget change concept and the policy paper.
The Board also voted to add the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) as a data provider to C2C and to add to the P20W data set. The addition of data from the DMV would allow C2C to more reliably report earnings for people who only appear in high school data without other postsecondary education, training, or interaction with social services.
For the last presentation, the Board heard from two educators who submitted to the Lesson Plan Challenge. Michael Chrzan, Center for Educational Data Science and Innovation at the University of Maryland, College Park and Jeffrey Yo, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, presented their lesson plans and the importance of using real data from C2C to teach data literacy.