About Us
Portland-Based. Nationally Available. Classroom-Tested. Community-Focused.
THE CONTRADICTION WE LIVED
Rooted in Power Collective was not created because we stopped believing in schools.
It was created because we believed schools could become more than what we were experiencing.
Between the two of us, we spent years inside classrooms, leadership spaces, community conversations, and school systems doing work rooted in belonging, connection, and creating conditions where students and educators could thrive.
Like many leaders, we stepped into spaces that called for transformation. Schools invested in belonging initiatives, created leadership roles, and invited conversations about culture, connection, and change because there was a real desire to do better.
And we learned something important.
Transformation is not difficult because people do not care.
Transformation is difficult because it asks communities to rethink leadership, examine long-held assumptions, share power differently, and stay connected through discomfort.
We found ourselves helping navigate conversations people wanted to have but were not always prepared to sustain.
We supported students who wanted to feel seen. We partnered with educators trying to lead differently. We worked alongside families carrying hope, questions, and concern. And we learned that meaningful change requires more than language or intention.
It requires relationships.
It requires trust.
It requires structures that make belonging possible and leadership sustainable.
There were moments we experienced the weight that comes with carrying both the work and our own identities at the same time. We know what it feels like to care deeply, lead courageously, and still wonder whether the conditions exist to sustain the very change communities are asking for.
That experience became the foundation for Rooted in Power Collective.
Because we do not believe transformation should live inside one person, one role, or one initiative.
We believe transformation happens when communities learn to lead together.
Rooted in Power Collective exists to walk alongside schools and organizations as they build stronger cultures, deepen belonging, strengthen leadership, and create places where students, families, and educators can thrive together.
The work is not asking people to leave parts of themselves behind to belong.
It is creating places where students, families, and educators can show up fully and experience what becomes possible when communities grow together.
WHO WE ARE
Rooted in Power was not born in a boardroom. It was born in classrooms, in community, and in the moments that asked us to choose whether we would survive systems or transform them.
For Angelina Muñoz, that looked like years spent protecting elementary students and families from racism, microaggressions, and the everyday ways schools can unintentionally lower expectations for Black and Brown children while calling it support.
For Sade Rivers, the work began long before leadership titles. It began as a student navigating educational spaces often as one of the only ones in the room. Years later, watching her own children carry experiences that felt painfully familiar became a turning point. Seeing the same patterns show up across generations pushed her beyond advocacy and into systems work. When seats at the table were not enough, she created the role she wished existed when she was a child and the role she wanted her own children to have access to. That journey ultimately led her to leadership, equity work, and building systems where students do not have to fight to be fully seen.
Rooted in Power exists because we know transformation happens when lived experience meets action and when leadership becomes an act of collective care.
We are two women from different cultures who share a deep conviction: schools can be places where every student belongs.
We believe schools are strongest when students whose voices have historically been overlooked are intentionally supported, when BIPOC students are affirmed and experience true belonging, when all students develop the skills to listen across difference and engage with care, and when educators have the training and support to turn hard moments into opportunities for growth, connection, and collective responsibility.
This work is not about choosing some students over others. It is about creating the conditions where every student can thrive.
We are based in Portland, Oregon, where schools are navigating real challenges right now. We work with schools locally and nationally who are ready to build something better whether they're facing a crisis or simply ready to grow.
Rooted in Power was created by two women who come from different cultures but share the same knowledge: leadership is not a solo act.
Our Founders
Angelina Muñoz
Co-Founder — Educator. Curriculum Designer. Facilitator.
Angelina Muñoz is a Mexican American educator, curriculum builder, and classroom leader whose work is grounded in the belief that every child deserves to feel known, challenged, and deeply connected to their learning community.
For years, Angelina worked inside elementary classrooms not as an observer of educational systems, but as someone shaping them every day. She built learning environments where students experienced belonging without lowering expectations, where culture was treated as an asset, and where relationships became the foundation for growth. She partnered closely with families, advocated for students whose brilliance was often overlooked, and supported children in developing both confidence in themselves and connection to one another.
Her experience taught her that meaningful education is not created through programs alone. It is built through intentional curriculum, courageous conversations, responsive teaching, and classrooms where students learn to engage across difference with curiosity, empathy, and care.
Angelina brings a rare ability to translate big ideas into meaningful practice. She understands what it means to navigate difficult conversations with colleagues, support students through moments of harm and identity development, and create spaces where accountability and belonging can exist together.
At Rooted in Power, Angelina leads curriculum design, student learning experiences, and facilitation strategy. She designs culturally responsive learning experiences, develops tools and resources for classrooms and organizations, and supports educators in turning values into daily practice. Through coaching and professional learning, she helps educators strengthen classroom culture, deepen engagement, and create spaces where every student can feel safe, seen, challenged, and valued.
Sade Rivers
Co-Founder — Equity Leader. DEI Strategist. Leadership Facilitator.
Sade Rivers is a Black educator, parent, and equity leader whose work is rooted in lived experience and a belief that schools can become places where every student feels seen, challenged, and deeply connected.
Growing up in Portland, Sade moved through educational spaces where having Black educators was rare. Years later, watching her own children navigate many of those same experiences became a turning point. She began asking a different question, not only how do we support individual students, but how do we transform the systems around them.
That question led her from advocacy into leadership. She served on a school board, identified a gap in how equity and belonging were being supported, helped create and grow a dedicated DEI role, and later expanded that work into schoolwide leadership focused on student culture, belonging, restorative practices, affinity spaces, and systems change. Along the way she created courageous spaces for conversations around identity, belonging, and equity that brought communities closer together rather than further apart.
Sade currently serves as a Board Member for the Oregon Alliance of Black School Educators (ORABSE), where she also serves as Co Chair of the Scholarship Committee. Through that work, she helps steward educator grants that support Black educators in continuing their education, strengthening professional practice, and growing into leadership across Oregon. Her involvement reflects a deeply personal commitment to increasing representation and ensuring future generations of students experience what she often did not growing up: seeing themselves reflected in the adults leading their learning.
At Rooted in Power, Sade leads professional development, leadership facilitation, leadership coaching, and systems-level equity strategy. She partners with schools and organizations to build structures, strengthen adult learning, and create the conditions where meaningful and lasting transformation becomes possible.
OUR STORY
Rooted in Power was born from two women carrying different cultures, different stories, and a shared belief that we should never have to leave parts of ourselves at the door to lead well.
Our work was not born from theory. It was born from years inside schools, inside relationships, and inside moments that asked us to choose whether we would shrink ourselves to fit systems or help build something different.
One of us carved space in educational spaces where her voice was often one of few. She led equity and belonging work, served as a Director of Students, and spent years creating spaces where students, staff, and families could feel seen, connected, and supported. Along the way, she learned that real change is not about pushing people away. It is about helping people grow, build understanding, and move toward one another with courage and accountability.
The other spent years teaching diverse learners and protecting children from the quiet ways systems can underestimate them. Through that work, she learned that the most powerful classrooms were never the ones where students sat in separate corners of identity. They were the ones where students learned to know themselves deeply, see each other fully, and build community across difference.
Both of us know what it feels like to carry responsibility that was never meant to be carried alone. We have watched systems reward individual achievement while relationships weakened. We have felt what happens when culturally rich communities are asked to disconnect from the very things that make them powerful.
And both of us came to the same truth: leadership was never meant to be a solo act.
So we built Rooted in Power Collective.
We brought together our cultures, our lived experiences, our questions, and our commitment to building something more human.
Rooted in Power exists for schools and organizations that believe belonging and accountability can live together. That students who have historically been pushed to the margins should be intentionally supported. That perspective-taking is a skill worth teaching. And that schools can become places where every student feels connected, every family feels valued, and no one has to leave parts of themselves behind to belong.
We are Portland-based. We are nationally available. And we are here for the schools who believe, with us, that something better is possible.
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT
There are plenty of consultants who can talk about culture, belonging, and equity.
Our work was built inside classrooms, leadership teams, community conversations, and the everyday moments where people have to decide whether they will avoid hard things or move through them together.
We know what it means to support a student after harm. To navigate difficult conversations with colleagues. To sit with families in moments of frustration and rebuild trust. To help educators move from fear and uncertainty into practice. And to create spaces where people can tell the truth, stay in relationship, and grow.
We do not believe belonging means avoiding difference.
We believe schools become stronger when students whose voices have historically been overlooked experience real belonging, when students learn to understand perspectives beyond their own, and when adults have the support to lead through complexity with courage and care.
Our work is rooted in the belief that accountability and connection are not competing values. They strengthen one another.
When harm is addressed with honesty and relationship, trust grows. When people build the skills to listen, reflect, and stay engaged across difference, communities become stronger.
When you work with Rooted in Power Collective, you are not getting a one-size-fits-all training or a set of slides.
You are gaining partners who have lived this work as educators, parents, facilitators, and leaders. People who understand the difference between what sounds good in theory and what actually changes how people experience school.
We do not perform this work.
We build the conditions for people to belong, grow, and lead together.
We don't perform equity. We practice it in community.
Portland Is Where We Are Rooted.
The Nation Is Where We Are Going.
We know the Portland school landscape because we live and work in it. We also know that what is happening here is happening in communities across the country. Schools everywhere need support that is grounded in lived experience, not distance and theory. We are available for in-person work in the Pacific Northwest and virtual consultation nationwide.