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Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference

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2025 Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference Better Together

Conference Program | October 3 & 4, 2025
Bios of plenary speakers can be found here.
Conference program with session descriptions can be found here.

Friday, October 3 – 1:00 to 6:15 p.m. Eastern time
  
Conference Opening - 1:00-1:30 p.m.  

Plenary Speaker - 1:30 - 2:15 p.m.

Bridging Resources and Relationships: Strengthening Community-Based Schools through University-Community Partnerships 

Jin Sook Lee, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Associate Dean of Graduate Division, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education

Jin Sook Lee is a Professor of Education at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and holds affiliate faculty positions in the Departments of Linguistics and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, she serves as the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division. Her scholarly work centers on the maintenance of heritage languages within immigrant communities in the United States, with a particular focus on the sociocultural factors that influence the development of bilingualism in children. Her extensive body of work includes The Education of Language Minority Immigrants in the U.S. (Multilingual Matters, 2009) and Feeling It: Language, Race, and Affect in Latinx Youth Learning (Routledge, 2018), as well as numerous articles on heritage language maintenance across diverse immigrant populations. A former Fulbright Scholar in Applied Linguistics, she is also the founder of the Santa Barbara Korean Language School.

  
Break- 2:15-2:30 p.m.  
Workshops - 2:30-4:00 p.m.
  
 Administrators

Working With Parents to Build Students’ Language and Cultural Development 

Roxana M. Senyshyn

 

 Teachers

Building and Using Languages Through Oral History Projects, Drama, and Film 

Kanjana Thepboriruk

Maribel Pérez Gutiérrez

Shahid Iqbal		  
Break- 4:00-4:15 p.m.  

Panel and Networking Session –  - 4:15-5:45 p.m.


How CBHL Schools Strive to Prepare Students to Recieve Certificates for Their HL Proficiency
Masako Douglas
Mamtha Tripathi
Yasuko Moyer
Minnesota School
Linda Egnatz
  
Friday Closing - 5:45-6:15 p.m.
  
Meet and Greet with Dinner-  6:30 p.m.
  
   
Saturday, October 4 – 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. ET  
Opening and Review of the Day – 10:00-10:15 a.m.
  
Plenary Speaker – 10:15-11:00a.m. 
Every Learner, Every Language: Personalizing Progress with a FILL approach in Community-Based Schools
Tom Welch, NCSSFL's Neural Network

Tom Welch is a lifelong educator and innovator who has spent his career pushing the boundaries of traditional schooling. A former Kentucky Teacher of the Year and high school principal, Tom is known for his bold, learner-centered leadership—greeting students at the bus each morning and requiring all administrators, including himself, to teach daily. He led early breakthroughs in performance-based credits, 1:1 laptop programs, and global initiatives like ensuring that every senior receive a U.S. passport. As Director of Seeding Innovation for Kentucky’s Office for the New Economy, he pioneered projects linking education with global readiness, including the state’s first online Mandarin course and a national MOOC for high school physics. Here Tom focuses on Facilitated Interdependent Language Learning (FILL) and asset-based assessment, helping educators personalize learning around student strengths and proficiency. A longtime leader in the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL), he champions a shift from schooling to true learning—powered by trust, technology, and learner agency.

 
  
Workshops – 11:00 -12:30 p.m.  

Administrators

Online Professional Development  Modules

National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC) staff

Ovoam Destro Boruchowski

 

Teachers

Personalizing Progress with a FILL Approach in Community- Based Schools

Tom Welch, NCSSFL's Neural Network

  
Lunch – 12:30-1:30 p.m.  

Panel and Networking Session – 1:30-3:00 p.m.

 
Motivating and Engaging High School Students 
Portuguese School – ABRACE 
Daniela Silva and Ana Lucia Lico 
 
Lizz Huntley, with the Qatar Foundation International (QFI)
 
Christina Pikhmanets , Ukranian Schools

 

Using LMS in Community-Based Heritage Language Schools 
Partha Debnath, Bangla School 
 
  
Break- 3:00-3:15 p.m.  
Workshops – 3:15 -4:45 p.m.  

Administrators

Building a Liberatory Praxis in Community-Based Learning: Identifying, Designing, and Implementing Critical Tasks to Foster Critical Language Awareness 

Ellen Johnson Serafini, Ph.D. 

Zora Khaled

Teachers

Using AI Technology in Community-Based Heritage Language Schools

Frederick Poole, PhD, Core Faculty, Assistant Professor, Center for Language Teaching Advancement, Michigan State University 

 

  
Break- 4:45-5:00 p.m.  

Embassy Welcome - 5:00-5:45pm

  
Conference Closing – 5:45-6:15 p.m.  
Reception and Networking - 6:15- 8:00 p.m.