Mara Kora

Mara Kora was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. She moved with her family to California when she was two years old. She grew up in the San Gabriel valley and often attended Mass on Sundays at the San Gabriel Mission. Her family moved to the South Bay when she was in the seventh grade, where she attended St. Peter and St. Paul School in Wilmington. She attended Mary Star of the Sea High School in San Pedro, and later went on to graduate from Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula with a BA in Liberal Arts. 

Upon graduation, Mara began working as a teacher’s assistant at St. Peter and St. Paul school. When the fifth grade teacher unexpectedly quit during Christmas Vacation, Mara began teaching full-time. She went on to teach fifth grade for five years before taking some time off to pursue a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education at Loyola Marymount University. She then taught first grade at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Hermosa Beach for six years. Subsequently, Mara started her position as the first grade teacher at Holy Innocents in Long Beach, where she has been teaching for the last three years.