Reyna Hernandez, CEO and President

Reyna Hernandez is a longtime community advocate who has dedicated her career to supporting education, leadership development, and capacity-building, particularly in Latino and immigrant communities. She has worked to empower youth, families, educators, and advocates to better understand, navigate, and engage with the various systems around them, serving as a bridge between communities and policy. She is currently President and CEO of the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE), a national non-profit based in California that partners with schools, communities and education leaders to support parents’ capacity to engage in their children’s education and strengthen parent-school-community collaboration. Prior to joining PIQE, Reyna served for over eight years, first as Director, then as Senior Director of Research and Policy Development at the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement. In that role she supported 18 states to develop statewide family engagement frameworks, developed the Opportunity Canvas framework to support integration of family and community engagement into state education agency policies and procedures, and supported the development of Core Competencies and a Framework to support the preparation and professional development of family-facing professionals.

For five years, Reyna served as Assistant Superintendent at the Illinois State Board of Education, working to address educational equity across Illinois. She oversaw the Division of English Language Learners, Early Childhood, and family and community engagement initiatives, leading efforts to develop and implement policies for a statewide family engagement framework, a framework for equitable access and excellence for English Learners, the State Seal of Biliteracy, and expansion of state preschool. She has also served as adjunct faculty at DePaul University, teaching educators about the contextual and policy issues impacting Latinos and English learners in education. Her previous experiences include advocating as a Research and Policy Associate at the Latino Policy Forum, engaging families as the Community Education Parent Facilitator at Waukegan CUSD 60, and engaging youth in their own leadership development as educational director and trustee at the National Hispanic Institute. Reyna graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard University and holds a J.D. from New York Law School.