Mariela Puentes
Associate Director of Family and Community Engagement
Mariela serves as the Associate Director of Family and Community Engagement. She provides staff management, budget oversight, and liaisons with the Maine Department of Education, local education agencies, and external consultants on systemic family engagement practices. Mariela works with educators and families to build effective partnerships for supporting student learning and well-being, and supports school leaders to develop skills and strategies for equitable and effective family engagement practices. She has led training and technical assistance on culturally responsive and equitable family, school, and community engagement for community school coordinators across Maryland. In 2020 and 2021, Mariela organized the annual Maryland Family Engagement Summit and presented at various conferences on equitable family engagement. Most recently, she presented on bridging opportunity gaps via family engagement at the 2022 National Community Schools and Family Engagement Conference.
Mariela has spent her career working with educators, families, and communities to promote equitable learning outcomes for all students. Prior to her role at MAEC, she hired and supervised staff, and directed the summer program at a public charter school in Washington, D.C., and managed enrichment programs for educational nonprofits in New York City. Mariela holds an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, where she was also a Donovan Scholar with a focus on urban education, and a B.A. in Educational Psychology from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
Mariela enjoys gardening and practicing yoga in her spare time.
