Eve Delfín
Targeted Student Intervention Specialist, Latino Student Achievement

Eve Delfín is a second generation Chicana from Mexican immigrant grandparents who settled in East Los Angeles. Eve was raised in Berkeley and currently resides in East Oakland where she is active in the community working on several campaigns and supporting community initiatives. She has dedicated the last twenty years to underrepresented, at-risk youth and violence prevention in public schools and the community.

Most recently, Eve was appointed to the Advisory on Alternate Responses, Programs and Investments Advisory Board which gathered and assessed data and made recommendations to the Oakland City Council  about alternatives to policing that increased safety. Eve is a member of the Girls Task Force which advocates for girls and gender expansive youth support. Eve has participated in the Faculty Diversity Internship Program through Peralta Colleges which  provides high quality learning opportunities for our students and  encourages faculty diversity to enhance the educational needs of our multicultural East Bay community.

Additionally, Eve was accepted to the Racial Affinity Fellowship for Oakland Unified learning best practices for facilitating starting affinity circles in schools and communities. This summer, Eve was appointed to the Measure N Reauthorization Planning Committee, which is a parcel tax that supports work-based learning where students gain real-world workforce training and internships.  

Eve has worked at several TK-12 Oakland Unified schools including Dewey Academy and the Juvenile Justice Center in the first cohort of Community School Managers, a critical role in schools as a high-level administrator managing, leading, and coordinating  integrated community partnerships to support the academic mission of the school and students needs. For over 10 years  Eve worked as a case manager, internship coordinator and crisis counselor advocating and mentoring adjudicated youth transitioning from juvenile hall back to the community in Alameda County.  She specializes in coordinating, planning and curriculum development with emphasis on social emotional, restorative justice and development of youth leaders in the community. In addition, Eve mentors youth as the founder of Homegirl Visionz Latina Leadership and Violence Prevention in Oakland and has recently co- produced their first podcast.

Currently, Eve is a Latino Student Achievement Targeted Student Specialist in the Office of Equity for Oakland Unified School District. In this role she  strives to create the educational and systemic conditions, culture, and competencies necessary to advance Latino student achievement within a full-service community school district.  Together, with our community, we are providing Latino students the academic, social, and emotional support they need to succeed in college, career, and life. As a previous director of a non-profit folklorico arts organization, she saw the potential that collaboration between community and schools could hold for our community. Eve truly believes in the power of community and community schools as safe places where students and families can be empowered emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Eve loves working with youth to guide them to their fullest potential.

Eve attended UC Berkeley, then transferred to UC Merced as the university’s first graduate, earning a B.A  in Social and Cognitive Science. She later received her Master's Degree in Interdisciplinary Humanities with an emphasis on Chican@ Studies, also from UC Merced. Eve keeps in touch with her heritage and culture through traditional folklorico and has danced semi-professionally touring the U.S and Latin America. She continues to be committed to social justice and solidarity and her goal is to continue to lift the voices of youth and families inside and outside of schools. Her work stems from her own experience as a parent and advocate for youth and the Latin@ community. 

Raquel Jimenez
Director, Office of Equity

A second generation Chicana from Mexican immigrant grandparents, and the first in her family to go to college, Raquel Jimenez's has roots in Oakland that reach back to 1952 when her grandparents settled in Oakland to work in the canneries and booming construction industries. Raquel, an OUSD graduate and Fremont High School Alumni, was an active student leader with All City Council (1989-1992).

Raquel graduated from UC Berkeley in Chicano Studies in 1997, and completed graduate work at UCLA in 2002, receiving a Master of Arts in Education, with a specialization in Race and Ethnic Studies in Education. Raquel was a lead organizer getting Black Studies and Raza Studies at Castlemont in the early 1990s, and served as teacher of Latino History and Culture at Castlemont for three years, before initiating the Youth Together program at Castlemont, building the first One Land One People/Healthy Start collaborative, and organizing to get the Student Unity Center on campus and convert the empty building next door into multi-service community youth center (now known as Youth Uprising).

She holds 25 years of community organizing, youth and family engagement experience in Oakland, with the Xicana Moratorium Coalition, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de  Aztlan), Youth Together, and Oakland Unified School District.

Raquel was on the Youth Together staff for 10 years, leading multiracial student teams to organize school change campaigns. She managed site and regional programs for Youth Together, as the Director of Programs.

In 2007, after leading the Organize Da BAY Coalition Student Power campaign, she joined Oakland Unified School District, as the Student Engagement Specialist. Raquel managed district-wide student leadership programs and organizing campaigns, and innovative student-adult partnerships and initiatives as strategies to increase student attendance, achievement, and institutional accountability. Later, in her role as OUSD coordinator for Youth and Family Engagement in the Community Schools Student Services Department, she led site and district staff and parent capacity to implement OUSD's Board adopted Family Engagement and Student Engagement Standards.

Through her experience growing up in Oakland, Raquel maintains a deep passionate commitment to achieving unity, social justice, and self-determination for all communities. Raquel’s goal is to advance racial justice in education by advancing student, parent, and community voice and power both inside and outside of the institution. Her work is grounded in her own learning and healing to become a better parent and teacher in service of Oakland’s diverse Latino/a community.