Stories of Impact: Santa Barbara Board Member Celeste Kafri Advocates for Community Needs through Data

Stories of Impact: Santa Barbara Board Member Celeste Kafri Advocates for Community Needs through Data

School board meetings often turn tense when beloved programs and staff are on the line—and the stakes were especially high at Santa Barbara Unified’s March school board meeting. As emotions ran high and nearly 80 students, parents, educators, and community members pleaded for the future of the district’s arts and music programs, the board faced a gut-wrenching decision: issuing 85 preliminary layoff notices. Amid the hours of public testimony and heated debate that stretched into the early morning, one voice stood out. Celeste Kafri, a Santa Barbara Unified School Board member and School Board Partners (SBP) Cohort 7 fellow, didn’t just bring passion—she brought the data, helping ground the conversation in facts while still honoring the community’s concerns.

While acknowledging the district’s financial pressures, Kafri drew on her background in finance and support from SBP staff to critically evaluate the district’s spending. Despite multiple formal requests, she did not receive the detailed financial information she needed from district leadership. So, she took it upon herself to analyze five years of audited financials—discovering that management costs had risen nearly 25% in the last two years, even as enrollment declined by 15%.

At the board meeting, Kafri made it clear: yes, the district needed to consider cuts—but they needed to be the right cuts. Programs with overwhelming public support, especially those central to student engagement and identity, should not be the first to go. She also urged the board to adopt a more strategic, values-based approach to budgeting and governance, one that reflects the community’s priorities and is grounded in clear, measurable outcomes for students—tenets she’s learned about and can be supported by through her SBP fellowship experience.

In the end, the board ultimately decided to give principals discretion in implementing preliminary layoff notices, with a strong directive to prioritize preserving arts programming at the elementary level. Kafri’s proposals to strengthen budget practices and align spending with student outcomes were met with openness from her colleagues, signaling a potential shift in how future decisions might be made.

With support from SBP, Kafri will continue to champion a more transparent, community-centered, and data-driven approach to school board leadership—ensuring that the voices of students, families, and educators remain at the heart of every decision.