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The Contra Costa County Office of Education is set to be under new leadership following this year’s election, with Superintendent Lynn Mackey confirming this week that she is not seeking reelection.
Mackey is now in her final year on the job having been elected in 2018 after working with the office for more than 20 years at the time.
“It really is kind of a full circle situation,” Mackey said.
The two-term CCCOE Superintendent said that she got her start with the office via a welfare to work program, shortly after graduating from Mills College in 1996. Since then, she has gone on to lead and help facilitate similar programs and others as she rose through the ranks over the course of 30 years with the office.
The CCCOE provides support to school sites and districts throughout the county, with its mission centered on providing educational services for vulnerable student populations including those who are incarcerated, in foster care, homeless, or with severe physical or emotional challenges, according to the agency’s website.
The agency’s unique role in the public education system means that Mackey can take pride in the dwindling number of students under its purview, as opposed to worrying about reductions in enrollment and the associated funding challenges that face school districts.
“Our numbers that we’re serving in our own programs are getting smaller and smaller, which is what we want at the county office,” Mackey said. “I think it’s reflecting that the districts are doing a great job working with alternative education students, and so are our own programs.”
The situation is also reflective, Mackey said, of an agency that is overall in good shape and doing good work. But that doesn’t mean her successor won’t face new and ongoing challenges.
“Since the new (presidential) administration, there’s been kind of a feeling of taking things from a firehose – very much the same feeling we had during the pandemic, where we didn’t know what was happening, and every day was a new message,” Mackey said.
Ongoing work will be needed, Mackey said, with challenges brought on not just by funding cuts but a philosophical shift in views toward education being proliferated in the current political climate.
“In that same sense, that new person is going to be negotiating a lot of political issues,” Mackey said.
For educators, Mackey said the current climate is one of fear and scrambling to support students and families.
“As we watch in other states, they’re just kind of going after anybody,” Mackey said. “There’s a fear factor.”
“I know all the superintendents want to send messages that we’re trying to make schools as safe as possible, and our philosophy is that we are here for you and we support you,” she continued. “At the same time, it’s hard to offer guaranteed reassurance as we’re watching other places.”
Nonetheless, Mackey said that the county was lucky compared to other regions, and that she hoped Contra Costa and the greater Bay Area would continue to be “buffered” from the impacts of federal immigration crackdowns.
With the better part of a year still on the job, Mackey said she was waiting to make a retirement announcement until closer to her departure date.
But as the early days of election season heat up, the open seat with no incumbent running has not gone unnoticed by her potential successors. Brentwood superintendent Dana Eaton and Antioch school board president Jaguanana Lathan are both campaigning for the seat so far.
