THE SPOTLIGHT
DeAnna Sandoval
St. Mark's School of Southborough, MA
2014
#latinxsuccessfromstmarks
DeAnna Sandoval graduated from St. Mark's School of Southborough, MA, in 2014, where they served multiple student leadership positions such as dorm prefect, Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) co-president, peer discussion leader, and orientation leader.
At the University of Texas at San Antonio, DeAnna simultaneously balanced up to four jobs while earning a B.A. in Psychology full-time. Some of these jobs included working as a data recruiter for Teach for America, a substitute teacher for KIPP: Texas, and a camp counselor for St. Mark's School's summer Global Citizenship Institute; all of these jobs sparked a love for education in DeAnna, who went on to join the 2019 Teach for America corps in San Antonio.
In San Antonio, DeAnna taught AP World History at KIPP: University Prep High School (UPREP) - a dream come true as a former little KIPPster. At UPREP, DeAnna led all-school social justice lesson plans for the advisory program and completed her M.A.T. in Secondary Social Studies from Relay GSE.
After three years at KIPP, DeAnna sought to give back to the boarding school world that deeply impacted them and began teaching history at Millbrook School in New York, where she had the pleasure of serving as a coach, dorm parent, chaired Millbrook's first DEI Faculty Committee, and broke the record for college recommendation letters by writing 29 in 2023.
Currently, DeAnna serves as Fountain Valley School's Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Colorado Springs. Additionally, she teaches U.S. History and is a dorm head for the 9th-grade girls. Students describe DeAnna as a "teacher who teaches like a human, not like a teacher," the faculty with the "coolest tattoos and best fits," and can be spotted around campus walking a dog and two cats.
