Dr. José Medina | Thursday Pre-Conference Workshop, Friday Morning Keynote Speaker
Pre-Conference: Cross-Linguistic Work in the DL Classroom (3-hour, registration limited to 100)
Planning for students’ opportunity to “language” their deep content understanding in both program languages is an integral part of biliteracy instruction. This workshop will focus on lesson planning for cross-linguistic bridge level 1, bridge level 2, and metalinguistic centers.
Keynote: El Power of Our Students’ Testimonies
In order for students to leverage all that they are and all that they can be, they must engage in critical self-reflection from a young age. Testimonios are integral to this process. As educators, we must continue to leverage the cultural and linguistic gifts that students bring into the classroom. Participants in this session, through the use of the Testimonio Framework, will engage in activities that empower the diverse student communities they serve.
Dr. José L. Medina is the founder and Chief Educational Advocate at Dr. José Medina: Educational Solutions. Prior to establishing the boutique educational consulting firm, Dr. Medina was the Director of Languages and Culture at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington, DC. José provides dual language technical assistance, professional development, and job-embedded support to dual language programs across the United States and globally. He is a former dual language school principal and has served as an administrator and educator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Dr. Medina is a co-author of the third edition of the widely used Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education. He has also authored three bilingual children’s poetry books focused on his testimonio.
Jo Napolitano | Saturday Keynote
Keynote: Assume Greatness
Jo will share up-to-date statistics on refugees and internally displaced people with a focus on a family from Ukraine who landed in Tacoma three years ago. With the help of their local school system, the family has rebuilt their lives after war. She’ll then discuss her national, undercover investigation of enrollment practices throughout the country — which yielded very positive results in the state of Washington. The presentation will also focus on high schools making a positive impact on newcomer students’ lives by removing barrier to their education.
Jo Napolitano spent nearly two decades reporting for The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Newsday before winning a Spencer Education Fellowship to Columbia University in 2016: She was paid to attend the Graduate School of Journalism so she could write a long-form piece on young immigrants.
That story morphed into a book. The School I Deserve: Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America was published by Beacon Press in Spring 2021.
Raised by a single parent, Napolitano is a first-generation college graduate having earned her bachelor’s degree from Medill at Northwestern University.
She lives in New York City and writes for The 74, an award-winning education-focused news site that often partners with other, larger news organizations to showcase writers’ work: For example, her on-the-ground account of Ukrainian and Russian refugees crossing into San Diego from Tijuana after the outbreak of war ran in The Guardian.
She is a two-time Education Writers Association Fellow (2020 and 2024) and is also a grantee from the Fund for Investigative Journalism (2020).
She believes no child’s life should be left to chance.