We’ve had a productive fall fostering English learners’ success with new and ongoing long-term projects, face-to-face professional development (PD) in several states and Canada, various conference presentations, and two online professional development (PD) courses.

New Projects

• NCELA. We are kicking off work to manage the U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition’s National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) in partnership with the Manhattan Strategy Group and WestEd. SupportEd’s main role is to provide EL technical assistance to support the implementation of OELA’s grants and contribute to the development and dissemination of EL professional learning tools and resources.
• Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky. We are working with JCPS to develop a new EL Master Plan for the district’s growing English Learner population. We are conducting a needs assessment and meeting several times with various stakeholders to develop a plan that will define a clear pathway to ELs’ success in JCPS.
• ChesterfieldCounty Public Schools, Virginia. We are providing a blended PD offering of face-to-face training for over 100 educators, online courses designed for teachers of ELs, and an online book study complete with a PLC delving into the strategies and supports in Unlocking English Learners’ Potential.
• South Dakota State Education Agency. We are providing a blended PD package (framed around our bestselling book Unlocking English Learners’ Potential) to content and ESOL educators from across the state and meeting multiple times in-person and online.

Ongoing Projects

• Syracuse City School District, New York. We are launching our fifth year of our ongoing collaboration with the Syracuse City School District (SCSD) in New York to develop and enhance their programming for ELs, including dual language and English as a New Language. This year, we are lending expertise on special education for ELs.
• School District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In partnership with co-teaching expert Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld, we are participating in a three-year project designed to support SDP’s “Together is Better” initiative. The program is designed to pilot and research effective co-teaching models in grades K-3 in three city schools. We are conducting a multifaceted model of PD including classroom walk-throughs and coaching as well as face-to-face PD for participating ESL and K-3 teachers led by EL expert Kent Buckley Ess.

Blended and Face-to-Face Professional Development

• Professional Development for Multiple School Districts. We are providing ongoing professional development on many EL-related topics, including culturally responsive instruction, instructional strategies for supporting ELs in content classrooms, instruction of SLIFE, and teacher advocacy and leadership in support of ELs. This fall we will be collaborating with educators in Winnipeg, Canada, as well as several districts and organizations in New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. 
• Edmonton Public Schools, Canada. We are working with Edmonton to provide a face to face book study on our bestselling book Unlocking English Learners’ Potential. This book study combines face to face meetings hosted in Edmonton, activities for teachers to experience strategies from the book, and an online platform of materials and resources including video clips of authentic classrooms. The book study also includes live virtual Q&A sessions with authors Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder.

Conference Presentations

• WIDA 2018. In October, the SupportEd team delivered multiple presentations at the WIDA Annual Conference in Detroit, Michigan and sponsored the event. The conference estimates 2,000 attendees each year and up to 200 attendees per presentation session. The theme of this year’s conference was Schools and Communities Empowering One Another. Our presentations included:

          ○ Grading ELs in K-12: Guiding Principles and Practical Tools – Diane Staehr Fenner

          ○ Advocating and Leading for EL Family Engagement and Empowerment – Diane Staehr Fenner

          ○ Adapting Materials for Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education – Jill Kester

          ○ Building the Academic Identify of SIFE Through Oral Language Activities – Sydney Snyder

• LaTESOL 2018. Sydney Snyder presented the keynote “Advocating for Diverse ELs in Louisiana: Issues and Strategies” and a breakout session titled “Unlocking ELs’ Potential Through the Teaching of Academic Language” on November 2 at the Louisiana TESOL conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Online EL Professional Development Courses 

This fall, we offered two online courses framed around our book Unlocking English Learners’ Potential: Strategies for Making Content Accessible. Both courses provided flexible, self-paced learning, a professional learning community facilitated by bestselling EL book authors, and a certificate for 10 hours of professional development upon completion.

We invite you to click below and learn more about our upcoming winter/spring sessions (January 22 – March 8, 2019) and how you can join us for collaboration around pressing EL education topics and solutions.

• Strategies for Building ELs’ Academic Language
• Strategies for Making Content Accessible to ELs
• Effectively Advocating for ELs
• Effectively Reaching Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE)