latinosforeducation.org

It was my second year of teaching and although I knew my classroom management skills left a lot of room for improvement, I thought at least my curriculum was student-centered and focused on social justice. Until one of my top 8th grade students approached me: “Ms

An ongoing question I’ve been contemplating is: How can I develop stronger relationships with Latinx parents to ensure we are working together to best support their child’s education? As a native Spanish speaker, I was able to engage in critical conversations about work habits, comprehension, and their child’s  progress in 8th Grade English/Language Arts. We have a few teachers who speak enough Spanish to translate or engage in basic conversations but collectively as a community of people who care about our students, are we doing enough to bring in more Spanish-speaking families into parent-teacher conferences? He joined as VP of Strategy and Programs in 2017 after five years at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education as founding Boston Executive Director and later Regional Director overseeing turnaround at 14 schools across the northeast in the largest randomized control trial of school reform in American history (

As a Dominican who moved to the mainland, factors such as learning a new language and internalizing the different social indicators in a new environment played an important role in my academic performance and caused me to fall behind as I prepared to apply for college and follow the higher education pathway that was promised to me post-graduation. For example, many Latinos migrate and establish in communities that are underserved and, as a result, end up attending schools lacking the resources to provide them with the necessary tools and equitable education they need from elementary to middle school and then high school. In the Latino immigrant community, this process occurs when facing new experiences and challenging events that require immediate attention, for example, learning how to navigate the school system, learning a new language and feeling comfortable when communicating with others, our ability to retain knowledge and participate in sports and other extracurricular activities. When we think about our ability and self-confidence to achieve the success we know we are capable of, the lack of access to opportunities during high school and college and the low representation of leaders in our community are some of the disadvantages that make our education process more difficult.

From hearing the awful things teachers and other students said to them and from their experience of being tracked into classes like home economics and shop, school wasn’t a place where my parents felt valued. Still, I have to wonder: would my experience have been the same if I had an accent or if were categorized as an English language learner, like my parents? Right now there are over 4.8 million students (10% of the total US student population) categorized as English language learners (ELs) in K-12 public schools, and nearly 80% are Latinos who speak Spanish as their home language. This is why I started the English Learners Success Forum, a nonprofit organization working with educators, researchers, funders, content creators, and other education organizations to elevate the needs of ELs in English language arts and mathematics materials for teachers.