Our Team

John Lauti

AAPISA Targeted Student Intervention Specialist

John Lauti is a proud Oakland native, graduate of OUSD and honored to serve Oakland's Asian Pacific Islander students and community. Born to immigrant parents from the islands of Tonga, John's family arrived to East Oakland in the 1960's seeking a promising future for their family and future generations.

As a proud graduate of Sequoia, Bret Harte and Skyline, John is reminded of the foundation that an Oakland education laid for him as he pursued a career in business and education. John earned a Bachelor's degree in International Business and a Master's degree in Education. John's work focuses specifically on Arab, Asian and Pacific Islander youth across the district. His main focus is to support and pilot programs that provide positive impacts toward college access, career success and living a meaningful life.

After several years of working in the Oakland community, John is excited to join OUSD in the important work of continuing to build up and highlighting youth and families in the city he loves.

Sabria Hassan

Arab American Targeted Student Intervention Specialist

We are so happy to have Sabria Hassan on our 2022-23 AAPISA team, an Oaktown native & OUSD alum who has been building out our targeted literacy programs for Arab & Afghan students, who have some of the lowest literacy rates in the district, through our community partner AAYSP.

Sabria now takes over the role of Targeted Specialist. Sabria Hassan is an active OUSD parent and dedicates her free time to volunteering at her local masjid - a known Yemeni community center Masjid Al Salam. Sabria is determined to uplift and give back to a community she grew up in and eventually returned to serve. Sabria's main focus is on the cultural makeup of the Yemeni-American community, in relation to gender dynamics, political identity, and cases of marginalization within the public educational system.

Wesley Hingano

Oceania Retention Case Manager

Wesley Hingano is a community-building enthusiast based in Oakland who actively works to empower people of Oceania in the diaspora. Wesley was born in Aotearoa, and his ancestral roots reign from the Kingdom of Tonga and Niue. Embedded in deep sea-level legacy and grounded in Oakland's rich history, Wesley has a passion for intersectional solidarity-building, active listening, and amplification of Pasifika/Black/minority voices. Wesley's educational journey centers on his Pasifika identity to inform formal western education institutions of the gifts that Indigenous people have to offer.

Wesley holds a bachelor's degree in Business Management and a master's degree in Education from Patten University in Oakland. In addition, WesleyEducational Leadership Doctoral Program. His research shares the unique voices and lived experiences of “Hella Tongan - Hella Oakland'' students in Oakland. In addition to his work in OUSD, Wesley is an adjunct professor at the College of San Mateo in the Mana Learning Community, but most importantly he is in the community as a culture keeper, advocate, and bridge builder.

Lailan Sandra Huen

AAPISA Team Support

As an Oakland native and proud graduate of Oakland public schools, Lailan served as OUSD's founding Director for Asian Pacific Islander Student Achievement. Huen's Oakland roots run deep. Her family first came to California during the 1850s and moved to Oakland's Chinatown in 1906. Lailan graduated from Joaquin Miller, Montera and Skyline High School, and went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in Asian American Studies from Columbia University and a Master of Arts from The New School.

Lailan has worked in education and youth development for over 20 years, running afterschool programs and youth leadership development training with Oakland Leaf, and The Avenues Project in East Oakland. She led the Town Researchers student research team with the OUSD Meaningful Student Engagement Office to lift up student voice and solutions for education policy reform, and conducted several youth-led participatory action research programs for education justice across the Bay Area. She has served on the Advisory Board for AYPAL: Building API Community Power and the Board of Directors for Youth Together, supporting youth organizing campaigns for education justice in Oakland and California.

Lailan served as the Senior Field Representative for Assemblymember Sandré Swanson on education, youth and community development, and authored a report for the California State Assembly on State School Financial Takeovers, evaluating the impacts and efficacy of the state's system of financial monitoring and receivership. She engaged, learned and organized with diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander neighborhoods across the country in her work at the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, and worked with local organizations and national coalitions to advocate for equitable community development programs and policies for Asian Pacific Islanders on Capitol Hill.

Lailan has come back full circle to her own school district to lift up the voices of students who are often overlooked and invisible and be of service to students, families, and schools toward the social transformation project of unleashing the power and brilliance of Oakland students to change the world.