The first time I met Jennifer Maestas was in 2019, at a coffee shop that has since closed. It was prior to COVID and CAST Schools was a tiny startup nonprofit managing two schools: CAST Tech in San Antonio ISD and CAST STEM in Southwest ISD; the Advanced Learning Academy was in the process of joining our network of schools. She and I connected instantly – about the power of storytelling, about approaching education with a sense of possibility, and about applying our lens as both parents and educators to design schools we wanted all young people to experience.
As the host of a podcast called Miss Education, she interviewed me about redesigning high school as an act of co-creation with local school districts. We both shared a core belief in the need to value the expertise of educators as both professionals and practitioners with direct daily contact with young people. At a time when there was a push to transform teaching and learning through school competition, principally through charters, we focused on the public schools that served more than 90% of students, and sought to catalyze change from within. If you listen here, you will hear a lot of laughter, alongside so much hope and idealism.
I registered immediately that this person would push my thinking, and I was inspired by her fierce commitment to honoring the work of teaching in all its complexity. As CAST grew, we had an opportunity to add new people, and she joined our small but mighty team.
Fast forward to 2026: We have 7 schools in 4 districts, including a middle school and Pre-K-12 Academy. We have built incredible, deep partnerships with superintendents and policy makers. CAST Schools was named as one of 24 school organizations as part of the national Carnegie Future of High School Network. I can’t wait to watch Jen Maestas lead CAST Schools to achieve its promise to build a San Antonio movement to make schools more relevant, more relational, and more student-led, and to mobilize the educators and parents who both love our schools, and are asking more of them.
One of the gifts of CAST Schools is that we have a deep and abiding belief that people – our students, our teachers, our staff, our leaders – show up with gifts and our job is to harness them. We’ve been so fortunate to see how that strengths-based philosophy has allowed the people in our organization to flourish.
Over the years that Jen has been at CAST Schools, I’ve had a front seat to seeing how she draws on her varied past as a principal, as a school designer, as a lifelong learner, as a storyteller, to elevate the people around her. Her mom instincts mean that our staff feels listened to, and nourished. She champions professional learning that engages teachers in a problem of practice, and gives them the opportunity to wrestle with research, test ideas in their classroom, and shape initiatives ranging from project-based learning to teacher induction.
She was the design partner in the launch of CAST Lead High School in East Central, demonstrating creativity, flexibility and adaptability as that school opening coincided with the COVID-19 shutdown and focused on some of the hardest hit industries – retail and hospitality. CAST Lead opened with some of the most creative projects and positive energy I’ve seen at a school, and that DNA remains strong today.
Listing her accomplishments does not capture the warmth or responsiveness of Jen, her charisma, her humor, and her humanity. Just this past week, one of our schools experienced a tragedy, and she was already in her car heading that way when she called me to let me know what had happened.
CAST Schools is a homegrown network of schools gaining national attention, and one belief we have never strayed from is that our community has deep strengths that can be cultivated to build a better future for both the young people and the adults who are committed to learning. So it is especially fitting for us that, after a national search, the candidate who demonstrated the vision to steer us into the future was someone who played a critical role in making us who we are today.
Jeanne Russell
Executive Director, CAST Schools