The Los Alamitos Unified School District has hired a facilitator to help create a human relations task force. Danielle Nava-Mijares, an Orange County organizational consultant, will oversee formation of the panel and assist it in making proposals for enhancing inclusion across the district.
A focus group of community members earlier this fall identified several areas of need for the task force to examine, including human relations training for all staff, social media guidelines, and disciplinary and counseling practices for human relations infractions.
Superintendent Dr. Sherry Kropp introduced Nava-Mijares to the district board at its recent meeting. Nava-Mijares told the board members that forming a task force to deal with issues of diversity and inclusion districtwide is “groundbreaking.”
“I’ve worked with so many districts and we’ve done work with individual schools, but no other district is working at the whole district level,” she said. Nava-Mijares has already started working for the district and will communicate to stakeholders as the process unfolds. Information about how to apply to be on the task force will be forthcoming.
“I am so thrilled to be part of this,” Nava-Mijares said. “I have experience and expertise, but I come to you mostly with a ton of heart for this work. I’ve dedicated more than half my life to human relations, and I’m so excited that I’m going to be in a community that’s already doing such amazing work.”
Nava serves on the Fullerton Community Development Citizens Committee. She is an alumna of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality’s Leadership Institute. In 2012, she was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the Fair Employment and Housing Commission. Nava also has served on numerous boards, including serving as past chair of The Violence Prevention Coalition in Orange County, GLSEN OC and the YWCA, Central Orange County.
