Mary Gardner Briggs
REPD Senior Director
Mary Gardner Briggs is Senior Director of Research and Education Policy Development at the California School Boards Association (CSBA). Briggs has been with CSBA since 2016, where she guides research and policy efforts such as school finance, assessment and accountability systems, governance, educator workforce issues, and student achievement.
In addition to facilitating original governance-related research, Briggs represents CSBA members in statewide policy forums and work groups, including California's Educator Workforce Collaborative. In her role as Senior Director, she also coordinates projects with research partners, doctoral candidates, and educational organizations across the state. Briggs also supports grant-funded projects for the California School Boards Foundation. Her recent work includes collaborating with CSBA's Policy & Governance Technology Services team to develop the association's Board Policy Development Toolkit and the workgroup for CSBA’s SOS for Student Achievement Initiative.
Before joining CSBA, Briggs spent more than a decade as an elementary teacher in the greater Sacramento region, teaching grades 2–8, where she served as a mentor teacher for Multiple Subjects credential candidates at Sacramento State. She later studied school organization and educational policy at UC Davis, researching school finance reform and districtwide transformation efforts alongside scholars from UC Berkeley, USC, RAND, and Michael Fullan Enterprises.
Relevant CSBA publications and resources
CSBA's 2024 report on the impacts of reporting requirements on local educational agencies, Drowning in Documentation
Beyond the Spreadsheets: Insights from California Leaders on Utilizing COVID-19 Relief Funding (2022)
CSBA’s Adopting Instructional Materials webpage and resources (project coordinator)