Monica Acosta

Monica partners with and provides direct support to Black and Brown youth organizations in CPD’s affiliate network working to win police-free schools campaigns to shift resources away from policing and towards critical student needs and the building of a liberatory education system at the local, state and federal level. She also supports the collective engagement of our youth organizing affiliates in federal advocacy campaigns to demilitarize and decriminalize schools and communities of color across the country.

Monica first began organizing in the early 2000’s, helping lead her first campaigns for immigrant and education justice as a high school student and youth leader at Padres & Jovenes Unidos (PJU) in Colorado. With an emphasis on political education and transformative organizing rooted in the Southwest’s Chicanx movements for self-determination, she quickly flourished as a leader and became Lead Organizer, then Organizing Director and most recently Co-Executive Director. Over the years, Monica helped organize immigrant justice campaigns that secured local wins like sanctuary school and city policies, state victories like in-state tuition for undocumented students, driver’s licences for all, CO’s Rapid Response Network and the eventual DACA program at the national level. Most recently, as organizing director, she led PJU’s work to dismantle the school to prison pipeline in Denver and Colorado.

Monica's own training and experience led her to become passionate about the leadership development of Black and Brown youth as well the sustainability of organizing models aimed at building and maintaining long-term political power - a passion and expertise she now brings to CPD. Monica holds a B.A. in Sociology and Spanish from the University of Denver.