Do you know what it is like to ‘find your people’? Californians Together hosted our fifth English Learner Advocacy Institute this year at the beautiful Hayes Mansion in San Jose. Following the curriculum developed through The English Learner Leadership and Legacy Initiative (ELLLI), the Institute brings the voices, strategies, and lessons learned from those who have been carrying the torch for EL equity for a very long time, to a new generation of leaders.
This year, we were thrilled to welcome 59 new advocates into our growing ELLLI network. We now have over 320 ELLLI advocates from across the state and across the system, including PreK-12 Districts, County Offices of Education, Parent and Family Engagement, Institutes of High Education, and other non-profit education-related organizations.
Since joining our network, many of these advocates have not only strengthened their own voices, they have also strengthened the agency of the students and families with whom they work, they’ve answered calls for action to use their voices to move policy and practice forward, and published timely articles on multilingual education issues. You might ask yourself, “Who are these people?” These are our people.
If you are a mid-career professional who is passionate about improving our schools and systems to better serve multilingual students, we invite you to apply to be part of our next EL Advocacy Institute, November 9-12, 2024. The application window will open April 15th! It’s not easy to be the lone voice in the room, but together we can do so much to improve our schools and systems at both local and state levels. Join us!
For more information about the English Learner Leadership and Legacy Initiative visit our webpage or contact the Project Director, Ruth Barajas at [email protected].