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Vanessa Luna      

Co-Founder of ImmSchools

A Dreamer herself, Vanessa Luna cofounded ImmSchools in 2017 to provide 1,000 educators the training needed to support the needs of 30,000 undocumented students and their families nationwide. The Teach for America alumna is also a founding member of TFA's DACA National Board and a 2018 fellow at VC firm Camelback Ventures.

Luna immigrated to the U.S. at the age of ten from Lima, Peru and grew up undocumented in NY. She was the first one in her family to graduate from college and her undocumented experience deeply impacted her choice for a career in Education. In 2014, she joined Teach For America and taught in Los Angeles and NYC, where she witnessed the need to provide greater support for the immigrant community within our schools. Luna holds a BA from Binghamton University and an MA in Urban Education and Policy from Loyola Marymount University. She was awarded the 2016 Urban Education Student Researcher of the Year Award for her research on the threat of deportation and its impact on middle school students. She has served as a founding member of Teach For America DACA Advisory board, was a Camelback Ventures Fellow and a Roddenberry Foundation Fellow. In 2019, she was selected as Forbes 30 under 30 in Education and an inaugural TIME 100 Next listmaker for her work and leadership in developing inclusive schools for immigrant families. Luna is a nationally recognized leader in the intersection of immigration and education, and has been featured in The New York Times, ABC Nightline, Forbes, TIME and Ed Week. Luna is inspired by her parents and the immigrant community to fight for educational equity and immigrant justice.

News


Vanessa Luna: the 'Super Dreamer' who hopes for a country where your race doesn't determine your freedom
Vanessa Luna, Co-Founder and Chief Program Officer at ImmSchools spoke exclusively to AL DÍA about her commitment to her undocumented community. A largely uncovered aspect of this pandemic has been the way it has affected our immigrant families as they try to resist lockdowns, job losses, and COVID–19 itself, given the Latino and Black communities have been disproportionately affected by the disease.
Help is Here to Know and Protect the Rights of Immigrant Students
In the dim basement cafeteria of a Bronx elementary school, New York 2019 corps members were halfway through a long day of summer institute training when a woman in a crisp navy sheath dress walked to the front of the room. She dropped a stuffed tote bag on a table, lit up her presentation on a big screen, and proceeded to walk corps members through two packed hours of highly relevant advice for the 2019-20 school year.
Vanessa Luna is on TIME 100 Next
Vanessa Luna was teaching in Los Angeles in 2014 when the deportation of a student’s parent gave her an up-close view of how immigration policy can impact a child’s education. Three years later, the educator and DACA recipient co-founded ImmSchools, a nonprofit that trains teachers to better support America’s millions of children with undocumented family members by creating more inclusive classroom environments. In ImmSchools’ first 12 months, 960 students and their families participated in its programs—which include know-your-rights workshops and college-admissions guidance—and Luna, who was named a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow, says the nonprofit will reach more than 1,000 educators this fiscal year. “It shouldn’t be luck that an undocumented student gets what they need in school,” she says. —Jasmine Aguilera

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