BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Sara Hernandez
Member of the Board
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
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