Dr. Cyndi Paik currently serves as Administrative Director, Accountability & Special Programs in Orange providing leadership in the District and school-wide master planning activities such as Local Control and Accountability Plan and Single Plan for Student Achievement. Additionally she identifies and implements District education goals and monitors budget development, special programs and planning activities related to student achievement and accountability. Previous to her current role in education, Dr. Paik has served as principal at different school settings: Title I and Non Title I schools, where at California Elementary School in Orange, she worked collaboratively with the staff and led the school to get recognized as a Title I Achieving School. At the time of her Milken Educator Award, Dr. Paik was an assistant principal at California Elementary, where she helped create an environment that promoted achievement. She developed a program in which grade-level teams discussed, reviewed and planned for student improvement based on ongoing interim assessments aligned to state standards. She modeled lessons for staff and provided demonstrations to parent groups so they could work in unison with the school in meeting the needs of a diverse student body in a Title I school. A hands-on administrator, Dr. Paik handled the school's Coordinated Compliance Review, safety plan, special education programs, intercessions, student study teams and state testing. Under her leadership, English language learners' scores on the CELDT (California English Language Development Test) improved school-wide. Dr. Paik also participated in a number of district committees, and obtained her doctorate degree in educational leadership at the University of Southern California in May 2006.
