Our Team

Araceli is a passionate family and community engagement advocate, an expert in developing parents as advocates. Araceli helped establish the Parent Organization Network since its inception in 2005 and has provided her leadership to the organization since 2013. A strong proponent of sound policymaking, she co-leads the California Family Engagement Network (CA-FEN) to promote family engagement as an essential pillar to improved student outcomes.

Prior to PON, Araceli worked for a decade at MALDEF directing its National Parent School Partnership (PSP) program. For five years she consulted for the Center for the Study of Social Policy, a contractor of First 5 LA to support its Best Start Program. This placed-based initiative in Los Angeles County builds supportive communities where children and families can thrive. Araceli graduated from the California State Polytechnic University, at Pomona, with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and received her master’s degree in public policy from the University of Southern California. She is a mother of two multilingual children, one in a public high school and the other starting college at Cal Poly Pomona.

Nancy K. Villarreal, M.S. brings almost three decades of experience supporting children and families through community-based programs across Los Angeles. Since joining LAEP in 1998, she has led a Family Engagement division, where she directs Early Head Start programs and supported the Best Start Community in the Northeast Valley.

Nancy is deeply committed to delivering empowering, strength-based, and culturally responsive services to every family and community she serves. Her career began as a teacher assistant with LAUSD and an after school program coordinator with Catholic Charities, where she discovered her passion for early childhood education and parent engagement. She is especially dedicated to working with parents of children ages 0 to 5 and raising awareness about the critical importance of early learning. Nancy served on the PON Advisory Board and mentored new Early Head Start Directors through the UCLA Center for Program Management and Fiscal Operations’ New Director Mentor Program, supported by the Office of Head Start.

Nancy holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Master of Science in Counseling Psychology from Mount Saint Mary’s University. She is also a proud alumna of several distinguished leadership programs, including the UCLA Head Start Management Fellows Program (2019), the Department of Mental Health Early Childhood Fellowship (2022), and the Coro Southern California Women in Leadership Program (2023). These experiences have deepened her commitment to high-quality early education and strengthened her ability to lead, advocate, and empower other women in the field. Nancy is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Educational Leadership for Social Justice at Loyola Marymount University.

Nancy migrated to the United States at age 16 to reunite with her parents in Los Angeles. Like many immigrant children, she was enrolled in school as an English as a Second Language student and completed high school in 1991. Nancy’s mother, a native of Guatemala who had to start working when she was young, has been an extraordinary influence throughout Nancy’s journey. Her mother is incredibly proud of the example Nancy set for her sons, nieces, and nephew. Residing in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, Nancy enjoys beach walks, reading, and listening to podcasts in her free time.

Daisy leads PON’s outreach, parent capacity building, and organizing for the EL Campaign. She is the second oldest of four children and the first in her family to graduate from college. Raised by two immigrant parents who migrated from Mexico, Daisy went through Lynwood’s public educational system as an English learner. This experience fuels her passion today for social justice and the human right to quality education. In 2009, she received a bachelor’s degree in history and Chicano studies and a minor in sociology at California State University, Long Beach. Daisy has devoted the past 20 years working with families in communities of color developing and supporting programs that focus on leadership development and self-sustainability to transform their communities to what they envision them to be.

Ms. Rosales skillfully leads the facilitation and implementation of PON’s new capacity building program for parents of English learners. Prior to PON she founded the PROedu team, which is focused on strengthening parenting abilities, leadership capacity and advocacy skills of parents to participate intentionally in their children’s development and education. She has more than two decades of experience as a parent trainer and has earned a reputation as an expert facilitator in the fields of curriculum development, family engagement, creating welcoming learning environments and meaningful partnerships with a wide range of families to improve children’s academics, and social and emotional progress. Ms. Rosales received her degree in Educational Psychology from the Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala.