BOARD OF TRUSTEES
SARA HERNANDEZ
First Vice President
As an LAUSD middle school teacher Sara founded a non-profit that identifies low-income students and provides them with exceptional educational opportunity and resources throughout their high school years to get them “to and through college”. It was Sara's work with students and their struggles with homelessness, lack of public transit options, housing and food insecurity, navigation of the foster care system, immigration issues, navigating the DACA process and general access of public resources that led Sara to pursue a career in public policy and local government.
After earning a law degree, Sara worked in Los Angeles City Hall, where she led community revitalization efforts through a mix of strategic economic development policies, innovative policy initiatives, and investments in housing, homelessness, transportation, infrastructure and green space.
In 2016, Sara went on to become the Executive Director of Coro Southern California, a national leadership development program that invests in the next generation of emerging leaders. Sara is currently an attorney and a community college instructor teaching Constitutional Law at Valley College.
As an attorney she works regularly with organized labor, community and business leaders in connection with some of the most pressing environmental, land use and housing issues in the region. She has done extensive pro-bono work representing indigent immigrants in asylum proceedings due to the devastating violence in the Northern Triangle and government oppression in Nicaragua. Sara is involved with the Southern Immigrant Freedom Initiative which represents detained immigrants at detention centers throughout the deep South and has assisted immigrant students with the renewal of their DACA status.
Sara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Duke University, a Master in Education from Loyola Marymount University and a Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School. In 2019 she was appointed by State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon to serve on the State of California Library Resources Board. She also serves on the non-profit boards of Young Eisner Scholars, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes and the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic.
In her free time, Sara is active in her community both politically and on the grassroots level. She has served as an Assembly District Delegate for the 53rd District, a delegate for the Democratic National Committee and in 2015 Assembly member Miguel Santiago named her Democrat of the Year for the 53rd Assembly District. In 2018, with her neighbors she started a group called DTLA Strong, a resident group focused on community organizing to build political power within the Downtown community. Through extensive organizing and outreach efforts, DTLA Strong has increased voter turnout in the last presidential election by 162% compared to 2016.
Sara currently lives in Boyle Heights with her husband Keith and son Theodore.
January 2023