Staff & Board

Raised in Long Beach, CA, Laura Zavala earned her Master of Education degree from the University of Utah School of Education: Education, Culture and Society program in Salt Lake City, Utah. There she worked as a Research Assistant and Oral History Coordinator as part of a community, school, and university partnership at a local Elementary school with English-Spanish Dual immersion students.  She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Chicanx/Latinx Studies at the University of California, Irvine, where she helped lead organizing outreach and retention programming for historically disenfranchised students and communities of color. She spent a decade at a community-based organization in East Los Angeles where she worked on several community-led initiatives and campaigns like Community Schools, Comprehensive School-Based Wellness Centers, Local Control Funding Formula/Local Control Accountability Plan, and local and statewide policy around Education and Racial Justice. Her role is centered on connecting grassroots organizing strategies with advocacy and policy development.

“A love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well.”- Bell Hooks