LAWRENCE — Educator, community activist and former School Committee member Marianela Rivera was honored with a civil rights award for her work exposing the failings of a state takeover of the Lawrence Public School system.
Rivera received the Louise Gaskins Lifetime Civil Rights Award for her longtime activism, according to the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
“All of the work I have done and will do is rooted in community,” Rivera said.
Isa Perez and Jen Meagher, both Andover educators, nominated Rivera for the award, according to the MTA.
Perez and Meagher cited Rivera’s work to expose the shortcomings of the state’s Lawrence public schools takeover, and to organize community members during the Fund Our Future campaign that led to passage of the Student Opportunity Act — the first significant increase in state funding for education in decades.
Rivera organizes families in her community to support public education, and with her work as an academic coach at UMass Lowell, she promotes education justice and culturally responsive teaching, according to the MTA.
And Rivera, who has a doctor of physical therapy degree, also co-founded HomePlace Collective, a nonprofit focused on training educators to design and adapt culturally responsive curriculum, the association said.
The Lawrence Public Schools system has been under state receivership due to performance issues since January 2012. Efforts are underway to bring the school system back under local control.
A local board, the Lawrence Alliance for Education, was overseeing the process but dissolved in early 2026 when a single receiver, Lauren Woo, was appointed.
Woo is the deputy commissioner at the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Rivera accepted the Louise Gaskins Lifetime Civil Rights Award in a July 27 ceremony at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Former U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a longtime public education advocate, was the keynote speaker at the event organized by MTA members belonging to the union’s Human Relations Committee.
A Kingston teen, Bendeshe Bonner, also received the Kathleen Roberts Creative Leadership Award for his work with Bendeshe’s Village, a foundation he and friends launched in 2021 when he was just 12 years old.
Bonner was born in the Ethiopian village of Wondo Genet. Before turning 1, he was adopted by a Massachusetts family. Bonner visited his home village in 2021 and saw the tremendous needs of its children. That inspired him to create a foundation that would support education and civics projects in Wondo Genet. So far, the village has been able to build a school, plant gardens and provide school supplies to children, according to the MTA.
Bonner dedicated his award to his mother, saying her decision to adopt him changed his life.
“The older I get, the more I realize that’s all education is. It’s someone deciding you’re worth the investment,” Bonner said. “I want to pass along the opportunities I have received. That is creative leadership, when a door opens for you, you spend your life trying to build a few more doors for others.”
The awards are named after two longtime MTA leaders who championed the fair and just treatment of all, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status.
The MTA will make donations to the award winners’ organizations.
MTA President Matt Bach applauded Bonner and Rivera as inspirations at a time when the rights of so many are coming under attack.
“The work of our union is the work of human and civil rights, whether it’s winning thriving wages for ESPs and adjunct faculty, demanding recognition of our right to withhold our labor, preserving academic freedom and free speech, and ensuring all students feel safe and welcome in our classrooms — union work is human rights work,” Bach said.
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