The canizales Sisters
The Canizales sisters are proud products of public schools, bilingual education, college-access programs, and the resourcefulness, brilliance, and entrepreneurial spirit grounded in their immigrant roots.
With over 50 years of combined experience advancing equity-driven educational outcomes in PreK-16 institutions, The Canizales Group brings deep expertise in engaging all stakeholders—students, families, educators, coaches, administrators, and executive leaders.
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Founding Partner
Mayra Canizales Cruz (she/her/ella) is a lifelong educator dedicated
to transforming schools into affirming spaces for children and adults
by fostering anti-racist and linguistically liberating practices and
systems. A former award-winning and equity-driven principal of
Oyster-Adams Bilingual School for seven years, she excels in systems
thinking to operationalize initiatives with intentional outcomes.
Mayra is a thoughtful community organizer who actively disrupts
visible and invisible systems of power to create spaces that center
students, educators, and families of color. Her expertise includes
school leadership development, dual language education, adult
coaching, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and facilitating challenging conversations with patience and power in both Spanish and English. -
Founding Partner
Yanira Canizales Wandera (she/her/ella) is a devoted educator and community advocate with decades of experience designing transformative educational experiences in collaboration with the community. As a mother, founding school leader, and local educational advocate, she brings both micro and macro perspectives to address the challenges and opportunities in education.
Yanira is a leader in shifting power dynamics and disrupting systemic
racism through community co-creation and liberatory design. Her deep expertise in community engagement and coalition building fuels her passion for advancing linguistic liberation and achieving excellent student outcomes. Additionally, Yanira’s strengths include strategic planning and the design and facilitation of impactful adult learning
experiences. -
Founding Advisor
As a college professor, counselor, researcher, college access practitioner, and adult trainer, Dr. Claudia Canizales Aguilar has worked with students, families, teachers, counselors, and administrators throughout the K-16 pipeline to ensure students meet their academic and personal goals. Dr. Aguilar’s expertise lies in designing equitable, systematic, and student- and family-centered school counseling and college access programs that empower students with actionable post-secondary education plans. She is deeply committed to creating parent and family engagement programs that move beyond the traditional educator-as-expert model, instead centering parents’ hopes and experiences as integral to shaping their children’s futures.
OUR VISION
We envision a national education system with enough high-quality Dual Language programs to serve all 4.95 million emergent bilingual learners. In this vision, Latino/x principals are empowered to lead within their communities, fostering environments that nurture, challenge, and equip students to become anti-racist, multilingual leaders.
Our ultimate goal is to reverse the trend of heritage language loss and ensure that every emergent bilingual student achieves biliteracy, creating a future where linguistic and cultural diversity is celebrated and sustained.
“One of the greatest assets The Canizales Group brought was the ability to quickly and effectively establish trust. The Canizales Group is well-organized, thorough, flexible, and focused on student and community needs.”