Photo by Surge Institute
One of our most fundamental desires is that
we just want to be seen.
I want to help people feel seen and to see themselves.
I am an accomplished leader, education advocate, and facilitator dedicated to building new realities for our young people and helping the adults who support them show up as their authentic selves.
A 3rd generation San Franciscan of Filipina, Mexican, Irish, and Cape Verdean ancestry, I served San Francisco Unified School District - where I attended school - for 10 years, providing strategic and equity-centered leadership to a wide range of work across the district. My multicultural background and diverse schooling experiences as a student specifically influenced my work to empower young people and help them develop a sense of self-efficacy before they graduate.
As an Educational Policy Analyst, I designed and implemented programming in alignment with Board of Education Resolutions and policies that focused on students dealing with parental incarceration and students experiencing homelessness. A primary focus of this work consisted of reviewing and developing anti-racist central-office processes to support students and families through year-long advisory boards, pilot programming for district-wide implementation, and reviewing best practices already happening at school sites. Prior to that, I worked in Human Resources as a Senior Human Capital Analyst, strategically staffing school-sites and central-offices with certificated and administrative staff.
In 2022, I joined the Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS) as a Senior Project Manager for the School Crisis Recovery and Renewal project, where I was able to support a national network of educators and school crisis leaders across the country who were navigating the aftermath of "big things." My personal experience of having suddenly lost my mother, two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic became a global issue, and experiencing many school-related losses and crises in San Francisco public schools as a student and school leader, guided me in coordinating the project's efforts and facilitating from the heart. Now I support other behavioral and mental health initiatives through my work at CARS.
I am skilled at leading within complex systems where, using data and inquiry-based practices, I have been able to engage a wide range of stakeholders in design and improvement projects that remain student and family-centered and with an anti-racist lens. Through holding space for difficult conversations, naming challenging dynamics, and uplifting insights, I have helped folks identify mechanisms for change within the very communities they are a part of. I arrive with authenticity in all of the work that I do, and I strive to support whoever I am working with in being comfortable doing the same. Growing up, I had teachers and adults who looked like me in my life, and as my identity has grown and I have been able to see myself more clearly - as someone mixed, as a woman, as an elder millennial, as a griever - all I hope for is that I can help others develop their abilities to see them selves fully in both their personal and professinoal lives. As a result, I coordinate, project manage, facilitate, write, lead, and grieve from a place of honesty with transparent vulnerability and welcome others to do the same while we are together.
Though I was born a Nicole, my mother immediately knew I was a 'Niki,' which is the name most people call me by. As much as I have loved telling jokes, stories, and performing in my lifetime, I am always seeking to be a part of an ensemble cast as much as I am seeking to be a star in any work I do.
I hold a Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College and a Master of Arts in Education: Equity & Social Justice from San Francisco State University. I was a Surge Institute Fellow in their inaugural Oakland, CA, cohort, and long-term serving member of the board of the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small Schools (SF-CESS). I have consulted for Surge Institute and SF-CESS, facilitating space within professional learning communities.
As an Educational Policy Analyst, I designed and implemented programming in alignment with Board of Education Resolutions and policies that focused on students dealing with parental incarceration and students experiencing homelessness. A primary focus of this work consisted of reviewing and developing anti-racist central-office processes to support students and families through year-long advisory boards, pilot programming for district-wide implementation, and reviewing best practices already happening at school sites. Prior to that, I worked in Human Resources as a Senior Human Capital Analyst, strategically staffing school-sites and central-offices with certificated and administrative staff.
In 2022, I joined the Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS) as a Senior Project Manager for the School Crisis Recovery and Renewal project, where I was able to support a national network of educators and school crisis leaders across the country who were navigating the aftermath of "big things." My personal experience of having suddenly lost my mother, two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic became a global issue, and experiencing many school-related losses and crises in San Francisco public schools as a student and school leader, guided me in coordinating the project's efforts and facilitating from the heart. Now I support other behavioral and mental health initiatives through my work at CARS.
I am skilled at leading within complex systems where, using data and inquiry-based practices, I have been able to engage a wide range of stakeholders in design and improvement projects that remain student and family-centered and with an anti-racist lens. Through holding space for difficult conversations, naming challenging dynamics, and uplifting insights, I have helped folks identify mechanisms for change within the very communities they are a part of. I arrive with authenticity in all of the work that I do, and I strive to support whoever I am working with in being comfortable doing the same. Growing up, I had teachers and adults who looked like me in my life, and as my identity has grown and I have been able to see myself more clearly - as someone mixed, as a woman, as an elder millennial, as a griever - all I hope for is that I can help others develop their abilities to see them selves fully in both their personal and professinoal lives. As a result, I coordinate, project manage, facilitate, write, lead, and grieve from a place of honesty with transparent vulnerability and welcome others to do the same while we are together.
Though I was born a Nicole, my mother immediately knew I was a 'Niki,' which is the name most people call me by. As much as I have loved telling jokes, stories, and performing in my lifetime, I am always seeking to be a part of an ensemble cast as much as I am seeking to be a star in any work I do.
I hold a Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College and a Master of Arts in Education: Equity & Social Justice from San Francisco State University. I was a Surge Institute Fellow in their inaugural Oakland, CA, cohort, and long-term serving member of the board of the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small Schools (SF-CESS). I have consulted for Surge Institute and SF-CESS, facilitating space within professional learning communities.
