2024 Schaeffer Fellow Janet Mendoza-Partida was selected for the 2025-2026 Executive Fellowship and was placed at the California Office of Tax Appeals.
From the Executive Fellows program:
“Janet’s love for her community in the Central Coast guides her work towards positive systemic changes to uplift underserved communities throughout the state. A daughter of Mexican migrant agricultural workers, Janet was born and raised in Watsonville, California. Janet is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Legal Studies and minor in Chicanx/Latinx Studies.
Throughout her undergraduate career, she taught students in East Bay and provided college and career counseling in her hometown, deepening her understanding of the disparities disproportionally affecting low-income communities and students of color. These experiences further exposed the barriers families face in accessing adequate healthcare, housing, and equitable education driving her to pursue change through public service. Through UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, Janet completed the Cal-in-Sacramento Fellowship at the California Department of Education, where she evaluated statewide grant applications for the Learning Communities for School Success Program (LCSSP) designed to support at-risk youth and improve student outcomes.
At the Office of Tax Appeals (OTA) Janet gets to bridge her passion for law and policy to support OTA’s mission of providing a fair, objective, and transparent forum for appeals from California taxpayers. As a Fellow, Janet coordinates and assists with hearings conducted throughout the state, while completing legal training to draft recommendations on appeal matters, including statute-of-limitations issues. Janet also gets to combine her passion for language access by scripting and creating Spanish “How-to” videos for OTA’s homepage to increase accessibility for multilingual taxpayers. In this placement, Janet has had the opportunity to grow professionally and produce meaningful work, contributing to the development and implementation of agency-wide policies to enhance organizational operations and efficiencies.
After her fellowship, Janet hopes to continue bridging equity gaps through servant leadership in public service.”