Shakira Williams Reynolds
Shakira Williams Reynolds is the first black female Deputy Director of a Comprehensive Support Agency in Marin City and Executive Director of West County CDF Freedom School, where she activates change in her community through transformative family engagement, advocacy, and leadership development. After a successful career in the education field, Shakira refocused her personal and professional efforts onto changing the lives of special needs and BIPOC families and parents. Shakira believes that empowering the parents of special needs and BIPOC children is the first step in transforming schools and communities to increase student achievement.
During COVID, Shakira saw, “a need to continue providing comprehensive support services for the residents of Marin City.” In response, she and her husband started a program to coordinate services sharing that “morphed into our non-profit and has grown to encompass Marin County and include working with children and youth.” Shakira believes that “acts of service are a form of protest.”
In her local district, Shakira continues to advocate through her platforms as chair of the LCAP (DLCAPS) committee and as a member of both the African-American Parent Advisory Group (AASAT) and the Community Advisory Committee on Special Education (CAC). She is also the creator of the Parent Leadership Council (PLC) which aims to unify members of all the district’s officially recognized parent advisory groups. Her work on this council serves as a platform for parents and guardians of underrepresented student populations in the district’s schools.
Shakira shares, “my hope is, just as I can plant a seed and never see the tree it produces, that my light will encourage others to find theirs and we will cause a chain reaction of goodness to continue to spread and pollinate the world-beyond what I can see, touch or even imagine.”
As a wife, mother to two sons with autism, world traveler, cancer survivor, and educational and social justice advocate, Shakira stops at nothing to make waves in her community. We cheer to Shakira and her continued success in bringing a voice to so many marginalized individuals.