Discover Our Staff

Contact Marina: msandoval@brightstarschools.org

Marina Sandoval serves as the founding Community School Manager at Stella Middle Charter Academy in South Los Angeles, where she focuses on the Community School framework to lead the needs and assets assessment. Within the first six months, Marina identified community-based partners like Dynasty United Youth Association and Moving Mountains in immediate response to students' academic and social-emotional needs.

Prior to this role, Marina was the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of Lawndale Elementary School District where she was an active member of the district’s leadership team. She streamlined practices, created efficient systems, and built the capacity of Office Managers and other support staff in an initiative she created called Level-Up.

Before the district-level role, Marina was the Community Liaison at the school level, where she conceptualized and piloted the family engagement model known as Family University. The model provides leadership opportunities for parents and guardians in Advisory Committees and, through workshops, exposes them to school-to-home learning to better support their children at home. Family efficacy increased, leadership capacity expanded, and Family University became the model districtwide.

Marina’s education is grounded in communities of practice in marketing, grassroots market research, leadership, and lived experiences. Marina Sandoval was born in Los Angeles and raised in the Lennox and Hawthorne area.