Hortensia Hernandez (she/her), is a Client Engagement Associate at the Children’s Aid National Center for Community Schools based out of Idaho. Serving in various roles throughout her community school journey, Hortensia, as community school coordinator,  helped start Caldwell School District’s very first community school in 2017. She then proceeded to lead her district’s community school expansion in 2021 as the district’s community school director. Hortensia also leveraged the community school strategy to effectively address chronic absence rates in her school. She built partnerships with local and national experts to rethink how attendance was addressed in her school community. Coming from rural Idaho, Hortensia  brings her systems expertise and practice based experiences to help school communities across the nation implement their own community school strategy, achieve their goals, and build capacity. Hortensia has her Bachelor of Arts from The College of Idaho.