Promote overall student and school success by empowering your staff to deliver greater impact. Our team is passionate about employee experience practices that value, protect, and inspire each person. We believe that smart organizational design is key to caring for your people. With expertise in every aspect of K-12 human resources and organizational design, we provide assessments, compensation consulting, leadership development, project management and staffing solutions.
The best place to start for a comprehensive report of your HR department's strengths and opportunities. The prioritized action plan keeps your school community at the center with each assessment customizable based on your goals. Learn more →
Better identify if your district office's roles and organizational structures are aligned to support your strategic plan. After working with our experienced team for an in-depth study of any or all of your departments, you'll understand how well your departments collaborate, learn ways to increase organizational partnership in your district and drive better results.
Maintaining a competitive advantage to attract and retain top talent begins with first impressions. CESO can ensure your onboarding plan is robust, inclusive and informative to create a lasting positive experience from your staff’s first moment interacting with your district.
Your people make the difference and caring for them has never been more critical. Help each person feel further valued and important by working with us to strengthen your staff care and development plans while implementing tools to track the impact. Increase your team’s engagement, performance and productivity by investing in their wellbeing, training and resources.
School communities thrive through aligned, authentic leaders. Equip your team of current and next generation leaders with the skills and support they need to develop more fully into effective, empowered leaders who drive results. CESO can design and facilitate leadership development plans in partnership with your goals.
We offer executive coaching services through our Thought & Strategy Partnership Program. Designed as a resource collective, our approach is customized to align with your needs or preferences. We’ve found that leaders are most inspired and effective when they receive real-time support, meaningful tools and actionable plans in collaboration with a trusted partner. Our diverse coaching bench means we can match a complementary Thought & Strategy Partner to each client and ensure a mutually positive fit. Connect with CESO to more fully integrate who you are as a leader, how you engage with the team around you and how you execute strategy to make a true impact on the larger community.
Know your district is competitive both internally and with surrounding organizations through a comparative assessment to attract and retain the best talent. Our compensation and classification studies include discovery sessions with district team members, job banding and a gap analysis. We also conduct peer studies of competitors based on your unique demographics to review salary schedules, insurance benefits, leave policies and more. We then develop a plan that helps you lead the way in adopting impactful new practices and processes. Create greater internal equity, higher retention rates and better career path structures.
We believe data analytics - also known as "people data" - can help your district more fully understand its story. Confidently make informed decisions with reports, trends and data analysis on employee engagement, new hire surveys, exit interviews and demographic studies.
When working with our team, rest easy knowing that we have compliance covered at both federal and state levels including I-9, STAR, 1095s, EEO, pay equity and more. We can complete your reporting, provide training to a new human resources team member and document your processes to prevent knowledge loss.
Navigating labor relations is challenging; our team of seasoned negotiators can help. With decades of experience in both traditional and interest-based collective bargaining, we focus on the outcome that’s in everyone’s best interest for less interruptions in your school district. Throughout the negotiations process, we bring a supportive third-party approach to data collection and comparison, prioritization, process guidelines, financial costing models, and documentation of tentative agreements to incorporate into your labor agreements. Whether you’re looking for CESO to be at the table during negotiations or a thought partner in the background, tap into a team who has spent careers successfully doing this high-stakes work.
Lean on CESO to administer any agreed upon contracts for the life of its term including answering questions and providing resources for your staff and ensuring all aspects of the contract are met.
CESO can complete all special education due process paperwork and audit requirements for your schools.
Increase efficiency and ensure a holistic experience for every staff member across your district with established human resources processes and procedures. In addition to analyzing your current workflows for improvements, we can create or update an overall process design - including building employee handbooks and additional resources - that bring your district’s vision and values to life.
Succession planning provides long-term stability and direction for your district. Work with CESO to identify key roles, explore gaps and develop an action plan to take current staff to the next level or find the best outside resources.
Leverage CESO for HR executive and director-level support for short or long-term needs. Our seasoned staff can step in to manage employee investigations, performance, negotiations support, retention strategies and more.
Whether temporary or permanent, CESO can provide the day-to-day HR support of a generalist or specialist by preparing and reviewing compensation packages, administering payroll and benefits, completing required reports and implementing training programs. We use your district’s guidelines and values to ensure a seamless experience for your staff.
Not seeing what you’re looking for? Need a combination of HR services and support? We’d love to learn more about how we can partner together to rethink possible! If it’s related to school human resources and taking care of your people, we have an expert who can help.
Our Human Resources Operations Assessment (HROA) explores the key areas for successfully caring for your staff while ensuring strong HR operations. It's the best place to start for understanding the effectiveness of your current processes and structures. After a comprehensive review, we develop a customized action plan to keep what works and replace what doesn’t. The actionable plan is prioritized into three categories: Do Now, Do Soon, Do Later.
When it comes time for implementation, we can do the work for you or put the plan into your team’s capable hands. Either way (or a blend of both), you can count on a course of action and timeline that are tailored to your team and district needs.
The assessment analyzes the eight categories that we believe are most important for successful HR practices including:
High impact, minimal effort. The tasks prioritized in Do Now can often be completed by your team, with limited support. Think of it as having all the tools in place, you just need a hand prioritizing, planning or making a conscious effort to focus on them. This stage is often also where we determine pieces to be implemented in Do Soon.
High impact, medium effort. These action items build momentum, accelerating improvement and increasing efficiency. They’re often project-based and may require an investment. Do Soon typically impacts the current or upcoming year, but the timeline is ultimately up for your team to decide.
High impact, high effort. We make sure you’re set up for sustainable, long-term success. Think of these items as your ideal state, with Do Now and Do Soon helping lay its groundwork. Do Later can also include an analysis of results, longer-term planning, and higher levels of organizational change that may require partnership support.
Through consulting, project management and staffing support, we’re here for both the big picture and the day-to-day. Partner with us for any or all, and get fully customized human resources and organizational design solutions aligned with your goals.
What could you impact if you had more time? Leverage our team for compensation strategy, classification studies, assessments, district office studies, leadership development, workshops and more.
We partner alongside our clients to do the work with your human resources team, delivering results through prioritization, collaboration and accountability for pay equity reporting, 1095s, and more.
If there’s a resource gap, we’re here to help. We do the work for our clients, providing interim and long-term staffing support from Human Resources Director to Specialist roles. We combine HR and operations expertise with a passion for the education community.
Being relatively new to Human Resources, it has been infinitely valuable to partner with the entire team at CESO on everything from standard workflow process to negotiations strategy. Their passion for developing world-class organizations comes through in everything they touch.
As a woman, I’m deeply grateful to have had a strong female mentor from CESO like Elizabeth Linares. I never doubted the possibility of my leadership because of her. It was with Elizabeth that I first learned to skillfully engage in difficult conversations, facilitate groups, and respond well to different perspectives. She is one of the few people I’ve met who naturally approaches coaching through a relationship of reciprocity: she not only guided my growth in areas of weakness but also appreciated and learned from what she saw as my strengths.
As an HR director working in a school environment, our employment environment is unique combining equal parts of creativity, compliance and compassion. We must do everything we can to get the best people in front of our kids and our community stakeholders while operating efficiently, effectively and transparently. We also collaborate with multiple internal and external stakeholders which means identifying data that can tell our district's own unique operational story. CESO has enabled us to improve workflows and operate strategically making our district a more effective operational partner.
Coaching conversations with CESO always seem to hit at just the right time when I need to get my head out of the weeds to think about the things that energize me about my work. The advice and perspective shared have been so helpful!
Bob McDowell has been a resource for both information and thought partnership. He and his team have found immeasurable ways to help support hard-to-fill positions as well as ways to optimize systems within my school district. I have appreciated the thoughtfulness and overall approach - it feels like a partnership.
CESO is refreshing. They have a deep bench of expertise without a canned approach or set of specific products to sell. Dr. McDowell is a perfect example - he’s a former superintendent who listens deeply and then helps you find spot-on tools or processes to address your needs. He’s action-oriented, alignment-driven, and ultimately practical. After spending some focused time with him, I invariably walk away feeling energized and better equipped to tackle the thorniest issues.
Bob McDowell has a natural ability to bring people together and tap into people’s strengths as leaders. He recognized what our leadership gifts were, effectively posed reflective questions, and provided direction when needed to empower us as leaders to get our teams moving in the right direction. As a leadership coach, I can’t think of anyone who has been more influential in my leadership career.
We recently reorganized our district's leadership structure to address service gaps and increase current employee capacity. CESO has been an exceptional partner in developing professional capacity for us, especially as a department with three new members who have less than seven years of collective HR experience. CESO managed RFPs for insurance brokers, employee investigations, recruitment efforts, benefits, job descriptions and pay band reviews. Our team works weekly with a friendly and knowledgeable CESO team member on process, customer service, and continuous improvement. We're learning how to self-evaluate, develop new strategies, and take innovative risks with confidence. Many of those "someday" projects are getting attention and action now as a result of their support. The exceptional service and professional development that CESO has provided assures that we are in a better place for the future.
As a school leader, I am always thinking about three types of development - day-to-day professional development, deeper personal development, and deeper professional development. Elizabeth Linares skillfully and intentionally balances that deeper professional development with the deeper personal development that I need as a principal. She has a true gift of coaching me as a full human while also pushing me to be a more effective, wholehearted leader. If you want grace and accountability in action, then Elizabeth is your person.
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