Our staff at COS is great. Many will go the extra mile to help students and one of those people is our dean, Angela Sanchez. Dean Sanchez is great with communication and is always pleasant to talk to, she responds to emails and phone calls quickly, and works on helping students achieve their educational goals. Being a veteran in the education field, she has come very far in her career and is an amazing representative at COS. She leads by example, showing how successful one can become when they strive for and achieve their goals. 

Here at COS we know her as Angela Sanchez but her given name is Mary Angela Sanchez. She has lived in California her whole life, being born in Richmond, in the North Bay Area close to San Francisco. 

Sanchez moved from the Bay Area to Chico and went to elementary school, middle school, high school, and eventually college there. Sanchez attended California State University Chico where she would meet her eventual husband. The two dated long distance until she moved to the Central Valley for a job and to be closer to her now husband. She shared that “it was like the stars aligned to keep us together.” She is now a mother of three children and one grandbaby and enjoys the time she gets to spend with her grandchild. She says, “he is a lot of fun.” Out of her three children, the oldest two are college graduates and her youngest son is dual enrolled as a high school student and a COS student. Sanchez, who has worked in several schools, says this is the first time, out of all the schools she has worked for, that one of her children is attending her place of work. 

The stars also aligned for her career as well. She got her first job as a Spanish teacher and served as Department Chair of Foreign Languages at Redwood High School for 10 years. She wanted to help students be engaged with her class and students to be successful.

Sanchez was encouraged to get her administrative credentials, and she did. She then became an Assistant Principal at Redwood High School for 14 additional years.  

Sanchez had the opportunity to work as a principal at Green Acres Middle School. She described this job as “the most fun job on earth and had an amazing staff.” After five years as principal at Green Acres Middle School, she became principal at El Diamante High School for a couple of years. From there Sanchez became Visalia Unified School District – Area Superintendent.  

As of now, Sanchez is College Of The Sequoias’ Dean of Educational Support Services, Language and Communication Studies, the Health Center, and the Library Resource Center. Since she has been here, she has seen former students and former colleagues from all the previous schools she has worked for come to COS and continue their education or get jobs at the college. She has now been with us for five years. Since this was her first job at a college, she joked “I finally graduated high school again in 2019.” 

Dean of Language and Communication Studies and Educational Support Services 

Angela Sanchez | (559) 737-5362 | [email protected]
Educational Support Services: 113 | Visalia Campus