Honoring the Heart of FIS: Celebrating Sandy Mendoza & 25 Years of Family Power
Families In Schools (FIS) is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, including a benefit gala on June 3, 2026, that will honor several individuals who embody FIS’s mission. As we lead up to our gala in June, FIS will be releasing one profile every week on each of our gala’s honorees to celebrate their life stories and demonstrate how they honor the spirit of their award.
For the first of our award recipients, Families In Schools is honored to present the Heart of Families In Schools Award to Sandy Mendoza, FIS’s Director of Advocacy. This award celebrates the quiet strength and fierce dedication that sustain our work every day, and it honors a colleague whose loyalty to families and belief in justice embody the true heart of FIS, reminding us that movements endure because people do.
“Sandy has shown tremendous passion, dedication, and leadership not only here at Families In Schools, but throughout her life as she has tirelessly advocated for and with students, families, and communities of color,” said FIS President and CEO Yolie Flores. “It is no exaggeration to say that FIS would not be what it is without Sandy’s fierce spirit and countless contributions for over more than a decade.”
East LA’s Good Troublemaker
Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Sandy Mendoza has always been known for bringing “good trouble” everywhere she goes. From a young age, Sandy witnessed injustices committed against Latino families and other communities of color, with her own education being extremely difficult because of outdated textbooks, overcrowded classrooms, and biased teachers. As a student at Woodrow Wilson High School in El Sereno, she joined her classmates in the East Los Angeles student walkouts because she saw district leaders weren’t stepping up.
The walkouts led to several reforms by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The Board of Education reduced class sizes, created new libraries, hired more administrators and counselors, and introduced more Mexican-American culture and history into the curriculum. In 1970, Sandy again joined protests against the Vietnam War as part of the Chicano Moratorium. These actions energized Sandy and an entire generation to keep advancing positive change.
After college, she served as the Deputy Director of Governor Pete Wilson’s Los Angeles office. It was then that the Governor championed California Proposition 187—an anti-immigrant ballot initiative that restricted undocumented immigrants from receiving a public education, health care, and other public services. Sandy quit in protest and joined the private sector before eventually shifting to nonprofit work.
Advancing Educational Equity
At United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Sandy led one of the organization’s first campaigns in education policy, A-G for All, which sought to ensure that all high school students who graduated would be offered the required courses to be college-eligible (A-G).
“Sandy’s ability to build coalitions and center the voices of students and parents resulted in tremendous policy wins at LAUSD, including A-G for All,” said Elise Buik, President and CEO of United Way of Greater Los Angeles. “When we started that work, we had one vote on the school board, and I thought it was impossible for us to get the win, but through working with partners and elevating the voice of students and parents, we got it.”
Buik also spoke to how instrumental Sandy was in changing the trajectory of United Way’s pathway to impact through a shift to policy and advocacy: “She taught me so much as a leader and truly pushed the boundaries, asking for forgiveness and not permission in meeting the urgency of the moment.”
During this time, Sandy met Maria Casillas, FIS’s founding President and CEO, and learned about FIS’s mission to center the voices of families and parents, advance equity, and respect family wisdom. She joined Families In Schools in 2012 as the Advocacy Manager under CEO Oscar Cruz.
Building the Leadership and Voice of Families
In her current role as Director of Advocacy, Sandy has trained and coached hundreds of parents and caregivers on navigating the educational system and advocating policy change, shaping core FIS initiatives like the Parent Warriors and Literacy Ambassadors. Many have gone on to work for FIS and engage in advocacy work.
In 2013, Sandy organized 200 parents and caregivers to travel to Sacramento by bus to give public comment in support of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and demand that family engagement practices be incorporated into the legislation. LCFF was successfully signed into law with these changes because of these efforts. As part of FIS’s Read LA! Campaign, Sandy once again organized a trip to Sacramento with families, educators, and community members to support early literacy legislation AB 1454, which also became law in October after a multi-year effort. This legislation represents a significant step forward in ensuring California’s students receive effective, science-aligned literacy instruction.
Sandy is inspired by the resilience she sees in parents.
“Many of these families have devastating stories of loss and been discouraged from achieving their dreams. However, despite all they’ve gone through, they’ve survived and continue to do their best every day for their children,” said Mendoza. “Hearing their stories of resilience and their hopes for their children inspires me to support them however I can. I have learned how to be stronger because of them, and I will continue to be a troublemaker for them to make their dreams come true.”