Personal Statement

My lifelong commitment to educational equity was ignited in high school, where I witnessed the racial profiling of my black and brown peers, and effectively organized with a group of fellow students to change a number of exclusionary school policies. Ever since, it has been my mission to ally with our schools' most marginalized students and families. I started my career as a community-based educator and organizer in low-income neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, PA, the Navajo Nation, and the rural highlands of Ecuador. I took my lessons as a community organizer back into the school system, where I worked for 5 years as a teacher in low-income public schools in the Bay Area and Denver. As an educator, I saw plainly that the key to creating educational equity for historically marginalized students lies in the engagement and empowerment of their families and communities. As such, my career has led me to the Office of Family and Community Engagement of Denver Public Schools, where I manage one of our community centers that supports families to access resources and skills to advocate for their children's education and to achieve their long-term goals for economic stability.