After more than three decades with the giant Los Angeles Unified School District, Jill Barnes decided it was time for a change, accepting an appointment by Gov. Gavin Newsom as Assistant Director and Superintendent of the California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI) at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES).
The Center for Homeland Defense and Security Master’s Program alum (cohort 1705/1706) said she had been interested for years in serving at the state level and “reached a point where I was ready for new challenges.”
As CSTI Superintendent, Barnes oversees the specialized state emergency exercises and training that the institution supports in the areas of hazardous materials, criminal justice/homeland security, emergency management, disaster recovery, and fire and rescue. CSTI offers more than 170 course titles delivered all over California to state and local government agencies, tribal organizations, businesses, non-profits, and other organizations.
“CSTI has a proud 50 years of service and a stellar reputation, and I am so pleased to be able to lead this essential work with a highly talented staff,” Barnes said. “The superintendency aligns well with my experiences, has the large sense of scale that I grew comfortable with at LAUSD, and offers a continuing role in public service, which is very fulfilling for me. At CSTI, I am building on all my previous work and educational experiences and am looking forward to making a difference for the State of California.”
Appointed in June, Barnes started her new position in August last year. She is currently activated for Los Angeles County Fires disaster recovery, assigned to the Joint Field Office as the Schools Task Force Lead.
Barnes, who started with the LAUSD as a mentor and classroom teacher in 1989, was serving as Administrator of Emergency Management at the district serving nearly half a million students at 1,400 schools and sites with 80,000 employees when she attended CHDS. She said she knew “education is one of the best ways to stay current in the field,” and “noticed a shift toward emergency management jobs emphasizing a degree in a related field,” adding that while she already had several degrees none of them were related to emergency management.
Already aware of CHDS’s “sterling reputation” and the program’s “focus on the public sector,” Barnes said she wanted to attend the best program. And, as a busy professional, she said she appreciated the CHDS “hybrid approach” combining “dedicated time on campus each quarter without competing priorities and interruptions from day-to-day work.”
Highlights of her time at CHDS included “getting a chance to take a step back and really dive deeply into topics and issues that impact our work, which is difficult to do on the job, going from incident to incident,” as well as “interfacing with a wide range of top-notch colleagues in the same professional arena” which she said “enriched the exploration of those issues and greatly expanded my understanding about the field.”
“Numerous times I have drawn on the strategies I learned at CHDS about technology and innovation, and I now use a future-focused lens when designing and implementing new emergency management projects.”
-Jill Barnes
Barnes said she also made a daily habit when on the Naval Postgraduate School campus in Monterey, CA, was walking to class down a hall dedicated to the contributions of astronauts that attended NPS. “I made it a point to walk that hallway daily to remind myself of the privilege and responsibility of being part of CHDS and NPS and that we are all ‘standing on the shoulders of giants.’“
According to Barnes, the most immediate impact of her CHDS education was the “increased credibility I gained with partner agencies when they learned that I was a graduate of the master’s program.”
In addition, she said that “CHDS has greatly affected my work in general as I am paying greater attention to applying theories that explain actions, I am a more informed and active participant in tech development, I have gained a better understanding of sector and agency level roles during disasters, and I have also expanded my network of colleagues with classmates and alumni.”
Barnes noted that as part of classwork on understanding terrorist organizations, she and her fellow students explored the social psychology theories of group behavior, which she said have “broad impacts on society at large and informed my understanding of group dynamics during [the COVID-19 pandemic], when I set up food distribution, testing, and vaccine sites.”
“Additionally, numerous times I have drawn on the strategies I learned at CHDS about technology and innovation, and I now use a future-focused lens when designing and implementing new emergency management projects.”
After a little more than a decade as a teacher, Barnes worked short stints with police and fire departments before returning to the LAUSD at Marina del Rey Middle School in 2003 where she served as Bridge Coordinator, Dean of Discipline, Testing Coordinator, mentor, and classroom teacher before taking over the district’s emergency management duties in 2010.
Barnes is a member of the International Association of Emergency Managers, California Emergency Services Association, and the Association of California School Administrators.
In addition to her CHDS Master of Arts degree in Homeland Defense and Security from NPS, she has earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Psychology from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts degree in Educational Leadership from California State University, Northridge, a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of California, Irvine, and a Doctor of Education degree in Educational Leadership from the University of California, Los Angeles.
