Our seasonsed team of HR and change management experts creates a logical path that starts with your current activities and leads to comparative assessments and proposed recommendations. The outcome? We help you align district values to your recruiting and retention practices, leading to greater internal equity, higher rates of retention, and better structure for career pathing.
Your staff is vital to the success of your school district. Give them every reason to stay.
Recruiting high-quality talent and retaining high-performing employees is harder than ever. It is even more difficult if your compensation strategies and job classifications are not aligned to market conditions. Partner with CESO to analyze and optimize your approach.
Our Approach
Project Initiation
Meet with key stakeholders, align on project parameters and deliverables
Discovery
Here, we interview district team members and procure all necessary documentation to gain context
Analysis
Our team reviews and assesses findings to inform the latter portions of the study
Peer study
Our team will identify competitors based on your unique demographics and design a survey tool to gather key qualitative information
Gap analysis & recommendations
The data we've gathered to this point will allow us to provide a path that details the transition from current state to your healthiest "Point B"
Implementation & Change management
Our seasoned change management team can help you lead the way in adopting new practices and procedures across the organization
Compensation Study Team
See our talented collection of employee experience, finance, and change management professionals — each with a long history of helping school districts make meaningful decisions that stick.
Ryan brings over 22 years of HR and executive leadership experience to CESO. Over his career, Ryan has overseen all aspects of the human resources function in two public education systems in Minnesota. While working in schools. Ryan completed his graduate degree in leadership and organizational development at the University of St. Thomas. At CESO, Ryan consults with school districts of all sizes on the structures and protocols that can help them care for their employees in the best way possible.
Christa comes to us with over 10 years of experience as a human resources professional, most recently being the backbone for all human resources in Spring Lake Park Schools. Christa is passionate about putting care for people at the heart of HR functions, and about supporting organization decisions using data analytics to shed light on key questions. Christa holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and Spanish from Concordia College and holds a Certificate in Human Resources from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Stephanie has been an advocate for educational equity for over 30 years. She retired from Robbinsdale Area Schools in 2020 as executive director of Human Resources where she served the students, families and staff in the community for 25 years. Stephanie was hired as the first African American school social worker in the district and then served as the first director of diversity and inclusion. During her 25-year tenure in Robbinsdale Area Schools, Stephanie led the development of strategies for inclusion, diversity, and employee engagement. She was responsible for ensuring positive learning environments for students and developing an integrated approach to building a diverse workforce. Ms. Crosby holds a Bachelor of Sociology from Tuskegee (Institute) University; Master of Arts in Education, M.ED., School Guidance and Counseling from Chicago State University and a Master of Social Work, MSW., from Augsburg University. She also holds a Certificate in Human Resources from the University of Minnesota.
Rachel Babcock has been devoted to HR — both in practice and continuous learning — for the past decade with experience supporting both education and healthcare operations. She most recently was a consultant for school districts and hospitals and is passionate about providing innovative solutions for her clients. In her role at CESO, Rachel loves to help school districts succeed by strengthening their HR processes.
Ron has worked in school finance and operations for over 15 years. His school career began in transportation operations, where he held leadership positions in multiple school districts, including as the Director of Transportation at South Washington County Schools, one of the largest in the state of Minnesota. He transitioned to school finance, where he has held both controller level and CFO/COO level roles in several districts. Ron has also owned and operated small businesses in the insurance and school operations space. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a Master of Business Administration from Bethel University (MN).
Tim has worked for more than 400 school districts in 3 countries over a 20-plus year career. He was also the project executive for the organizational redesign of transportation services in the State of Hawai’i including having responsibility for developing and implementing new position descriptions. Tim holds an undergraduate degree in History and Education from Salisbury University, and a Master of Public Administration from American University. He is Certified in School Risk Management and is a Certified Operational Risk Manager.