Candidate for
Board Member; Huntington Beach City School District

Family Life:

Celia Jaffe was born in Chicago, Illinois, and brought up in San Mateo, California, and Winona, Minnesota. The youngest of four children, Celia was raised in a close-knit family by at-home mother Mitzi and civil engineer/businessman father Tom. Both parents were very active in community organizations and causes such as the United Way, YMCA, Presbyterian Church, and American Cancer Society, and their values of volunteerism, community service, and education spread to their children.

After graduating from Winona Senior High School, Celia returned to California to attend Stanford University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English, a master's degree in education, and a teaching credential. Celia met Harvey Jaffe on her first day at college, and the two married six years later. During this time Harvey attended medical school in Richmond, Virginia, while Celia taught high school English in nearby Chesterfield County.

In 1987, Celia and Harvey moved to southern California for Harvey's psychiatric residency. Shopping around Orange County for a community in which to raise their children, the Jaffes chose Huntington Beach because of its family-friendly atmosphere, cool beach weather, community resources, sense of individuality, and, of course, excellent schools. Celia stayed at home with their children Diana and Jacob, becoming very involved in the local public schools they attended over many years.

Family is still Celia's top priority. She and Harvey just celebrated their 25th anniversary, and they're both working on adjusting to "empty nest" syndrome with Diana already graduated and working away from home and Jacob off at college.

Education Advocacy:

PTA has been Celia's primary involvement since 1995. Many years of volunteering at Eader, Peterson, Sowers, and Edison included all kinds of both leadership and "worker bee" activities. In addition to holding numerous school-level PTA officer positions, Celia became very active in advocating for children and particularly for funding of California schools. In her county-level leadership roles at 4th District PTA, Celia has arranged training workshops on key education issues and organized groups of PTA volunteers to travel to Sacramento to speak with state legislators. She has traveled around Orange County assisting parent leaders in other school districts and opening new PTA units.

Besides PTA, Celia has volunteered in numerous school and youth-related activities such as Huntington Beach Educational Foundation, Peterson School Site Council, Edison Band Boosters, Girl Scouts, AYSO, Literacy Volunteers of America, Huntington Beach Union High School District Community Action Panel, and many advisory committees for Huntington Beach City School District.

School Board:

Celia joined the board of trustees of Huntington Beach City School District in 2004 to fill a short-term vacancy. She had become interested in becoming a trustee in order to have a voice on the board with more immediate knowledge of our schools. In 2006, Celia's re-election bid was highly successful, as she was the top vote-getter in a field of six.

This has been a challenging and tumultuous time in California public education. Celia is proud of the consistent academic progress shown throughout the school district despite fluctuating and insufficient funding. For more specifics about her time on the board, see "Issues That Come Before a Governing Board" and "A Snapshot of HBCSD" on this website.

Conclusion:

Ties to the Huntington Beach community and working with the fine people in our neighborhood schools, both those employed and those volunteering, have been extremely fulfilling for Celia. The value of service, volunteerism, and education learned from her parents are expressed continually in Celia Jaffe's work representing the people of Huntington Beach as a school board trustee.