Annual Conference

Dr. Ann Ishimaru

Thursday Afternoon* & Friday Morning

Thursday Workshop (2:30 – 5:30 PM)*

Designing Everyday Practices to Transform Learning with Multilingual Families

We all say we want to honor and collaborate with families, but the default approach in schools tends to position language as a barrier and family engagement as an extra task. What happens if we approach language as an asset and families as experts on their children’s learning, cultures, priorities and dreams? Come join Dr. Ann Ishimaru and Dr. Maria Lucero to learn strategies for equitably collaborating with multilingual families to transform student learning and wellbeing. Drawing on research-based principles and interactive activities, we will engage with real life scenarios, design spaces for centering family voice and transforming power, grapple with inherent tensions, and share everyday practices for fostering equitable collaborations with multilingual families.  

Friday Keynote

From Crisis to Collaboration: Co-Creating Learning and Thriving with Multilingual Families

Description to come!

More about Dr. Ann Ishimaru

Dr. Ann M. Ishimaru (Japanese American Yonsei/she/her) seeks to foster joyful learning in educationally just schools and communities. She is a writer, researcher, mother, teacher, and the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair and Professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy at the University of Washington College of Education. Through her community-engaged scholarship, she cultivates the leadership and solidarities of educators, organizational leaders and racially minoritized youth, families and communities to realize more transformative futures. Dr. Ishimaru directs the Just Educational Leadership Institute, which hosts the annual Leading towards Justice Symposium and multiple research partnerships, and serves as the Faculty Research Director of the Leadership for Learning EdD program. In addition to many peer-reviewed articles in top-tier educational research journals, she is also the author of Just Schools: Building Equitable Collaborations with Families and Communities (Teachers College Press, 2020) and co-editor of Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems Change, with Decoteau J. Irby (Teachers College Press, 2025).

Hear more from Dr. Ishimaru at https://annishimaru.com/.

Dr. Adeyemi Stembridge

Thursday Afternoon* & Friday

Thursday Workshop (2:30 – 5:30 PM)*

Brilliant Teaching: The Craft of Equity in Everyday, Ordinary Classrooms

Brilliance in teaching shouldn’t be reserved for a select few. It’s a practice—a way of showing up, seeing clearly, and crafting experiences that honor the full humanity of every student. In this interactive, three-hour session, we’ll unpack what “brilliant teaching” looks like in classrooms that serve linguistically and culturally diverse populations. We’ll explore how mindset, presence, and purpose—alongside tools for engagement and rigor—can transform everyday instruction into a platform for student empowerment. Special attention will be given to how educators can recognize and respond to the assets of multilingual families as part of a strategy for Equity and inclusion. Just as a painter creates on the medium of a canvas, a teacher creates through the medium of experience. Participants will leave with specific strategies and reflective tools for designing culturally responsive instruction that fosters voice, power, and purpose for every learner.

Friday 2-Hour Workshop

Designing for Understanding: The Art of Equitable Teaching

In this one-hour session, participants are introduced to the Culturally Responsive Education (CRE) mental model with a specific focus on understanding—not coverage or compliance—as the primary learning target for students. Drawing on examples from Culturally Responsive Education in the Classroom and Brilliant Teaching, the session makes the case that Equity is not achieved by treating all students the same, but by designing learning goals that are meaningful, culturally resonant, and cognitively empowering. When teachers clarify what it means for students to understand—and intentionally design learning experiences that allow students to draw on their identities, experiences, and cultural fluencies—they create fairer opportunities for all students to engage deeply and demonstrate competence. This session connects clarity of purpose in instructional design to Equity in opportunity, positioning understanding as both a pedagogical goal and an ethical commitment.

More about Dr. Adeyemi Stembridge

Adeyemi Stembridge, PhD is an educational consultant and author who specializes in Equity-focused technical assistance. He partners with teachers and administrators to design culturally responsive systems and learning experiences. Dr. Stembridge has served as a technical assistance provider in applied research centers at NYU, Teachers College (Columbia), and American University, working with school districts across the country to close achievement gaps and create equitable outcomes. He has taught at the K–12, undergraduate, and graduate levels and is the author of two books: Culturally Responsive Education in the Classroom: An Equity Framework for Pedagogy (Routledge, 2020) and Brilliant Teaching: Using Culture and Artful Thinking to Close Equity Gaps (Jossey-Bass, 2023). He holds a PhD in Educational Leadership from American University, an MA in Literature from Old Dominion University, and a BA in English from Norfolk State University. Originally from the Bronx, NY, Dr. Stembridge currently works with educators across the country to support the design of meaningful and culturally connected learning experiences for students.

Hear more from Dr. Stembridge at https://www.dryemis.com/.

Valentina Gonzalez

Saturday Morning

Saturday Keynote

Uniting with Families of MLs in Purpose 

Families are at the heart of multilingual learners’ success, bringing with them unique cultural knowledge, experiences, and strengths. This keynote examines how educational systems can intentionally collaborate with families to foster communities of voice, power, and purpose that promote student growth. Together, we’ll explore ways to honor family perspectives, foster meaningful collaboration, and establish pathways that enable families to feel valued as co-educators. By uniting in purpose, educators and families can amplify opportunities for multilingual learners to thrive academically, linguistically, and socially.

Saturday Breakout Session

Increasing Linguistic and Academic Success in Every Lesson

Looking for powerful, practical ways to support language development and deepen content learning? This interactive session introduces high-impact instructional strategies that every teacher, regardless of grade level or subject, can use to amplify student language and promote academic growth. These strategies are designed to activate all domains of language, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing, in meaningful and integrated ways. Participants will explore how to create rich opportunities for student talk, scaffold academic vocabulary, and design tasks that support both language and content mastery.

More about Valentina Gonzalez

Valentina is the founder of Rooted Linguistics LLC and an international multilingual learner consultant working with educators across the nation to support multilingual learners and their families. Her personal experiences as an immigrant and second language learner fuel her passion for her work. 

Valentina works with schools and districts to provide professional learning experiences tailored to educators’ needs. Valentina specializes in creating presentations that are practical, engaging, and interactive. Her late grandmother instilled in her a lifelong desire to learn, and she has never stopped. Valentina was the first in her family to graduate from high school in America. She then paved the path for higher education and attended the University of Houston, where she earned her Bachelor of Science. She didn’t stop there. She holds a master’s degree in Educational Administration and will complete a doctoral program at the University of St. Thomas in May 2026. 

Valentina started her journey as an educator in 1997 as a third grade language arts teacher in Katy, Texas. She has served as an educator in many capacities since then including teaching second, third, and fourth grades. She is a longtime educator of multilingual students from around the globe and has worked as an ESL Instructional Support Specialty Teacher on her campus serving and co-teaching in first-fifth grade classrooms. As a district leader, she served as an ESL facilitator for campuses and as a professional development specialist. 

Currently, Valentina shares her time delivering professional development, writing, and studying. She is a co-author of the best-selling book Welcome to Teaching Multilingual Learners, Equitable Instruction for English Learners in the Content Areas, co-author of Reading & Writing with English Learners: A Framework for K-5, and the children’s picture book Krofne with Baba. See more about her experiences in the field here. 

Hear more from Valentina Gonzalez at https://www.valentinaesl.com/.