Today we are delighted to welcome Dalila Mendoza and Megan Fernando from Taunton Public Schools in Massachusetts. Dalila and Megan aren't just podcast guests - we've been lucky enough to work alongside them. Taunton Public Schools was one of Medley's earliest district partners, so while this conversation may be biased by how much Brandon admires their work, it's also grounded in collaboration, shared learning, and a deep appreciation for what they're building. Dalila Mendoza is an educational leader with more than two decades of experience supporting students, teachers, and multilingual communities. She currently serves as Director of Multilingual Programs and Director of Title I in Taunton Public Schools. Her colleague Megan Fernando has dedicated more than two decades to Taunton Public Schools and currently serves as the Instructional Coach at Martin Middle School.
Dalila: I'm very fortunate to say I love my building. Every single person here is here to improve the lives of students and we strive off of the growth and the progress that they make. That's what moves us together as a building. Dalila: We had an emergency shelter here in Taunton and it was April of that school year. The building leaders, it just warmed my heart, especially at the elementary level. That principal is an immigrant and she said, "Stop all instruction, love comes first. We need to really open our arms to these students because we don't know why they're here, how they got here." That's what caused the positive growth: them feeling that sense of belonging, feeling loved. Brandon: Hey everyone. Hola a todos. I am Brandon Cardet-Hernandez and you're listening to Leading Multilingual Learning, powered by Medley Learning. Each episode, we're exploring the leadership, ideas, and insights shaping better education for multilingual learners. Brandon: And today, I am so excited to welcome two incredible friends, two incredible educators, and luckily, two of Medley's partners, Dalila Mendoza and Megan Fernando. And Dalila is an educator and educational leader with more than two decades of experience supporting students, teachers, and multilingual communities. She currently serves as the Director of Multilingual Programs and Director of Title One in Taunton Public Schools in Massachusetts. Throughout her career, she has worked as a teacher, a literacy coach, an assistant principal, a professor, and an instructor supporting educators across the state. As the daughter of Portuguese immigrants and an English language learner herself, her personal journey navigating school while learning English has deeply shaped her passion for multilingual education and advocacy. And we are also lucky to have Megan Fernando, who has dedicated more than two decades to Taunton Public Schools, and she serves as the Instructional Coach at Martin Middle School. She was born and raised in Taunton to Portuguese immigrant parents. She's a first-generation American with deep roots in the community she now supports. And throughout her career in Taunton, she has served as a fourth-grade, fifth-grade, sixth-grade teacher, a math coach, and now an instructional coach, a role that allows her to support educators, strengthen instructional systems, and advocate for all students. Brandon: It's the first time we've had two guests on at once. And I think, Dalila, it speaks to your leadership, because to be fair, we sometimes think, "Oh, let's talk to the person at the district." Brandon: And when we reached out to Dalila, she was like, "Well, you know what? If we're going to have this conversation, I want to have it with someone from my team. And I want that person to be my partner in this work, who does this work on the ground." And that's how we got Megan to the table. And I think it really speaks to who you both are, but also how your system functions. So thank you for your creativity, but also your leadership. Dalila: Thank you for having us. Brandon: So, two things we like to do—I'm saying two because it's one, but there's both of you—is we always share someone's bio. And bios are bios and they're really important, but there's some of the stuff that we really love that sometimes is missing from it. So I'm going to ask both of you just one thing that never makes it into your bio that you're like, "You know what? Professionally, this is something I'm really proud of," even if it doesn't fit the paragraph I sent forward. Dalila: One huge thing I think for my advocacy is that I was a bilingual student in the same district that now I'm a director of. So I was an English learner. My parents, as you had said, are immigrants from the Azores, and they were here four years before I was born. So they were brand new. As a kindergarten, first, and second grader—little, little, little—I still felt that kids didn't want to play with us, kids thought we didn't know anything, adults thought we didn't know anything. So I remember feeling like that, even at five, six, and seven years old. So, when I took on this role, that feeling stays with me and it really brings power to my advocacy because I can speak of it. And also, because my parents were so young and so young in this country, I could also speak from an immigrant point of view where they didn't know society, they didn't know the systems, and they were learning everything new with my sister and I. Brandon: Dalila, it also really matters because representation matters. So it's such a powerful message to our kids, but also to our educators of, "You can start here and be here." And some of my mentors were paraprofessionals who became principals and then became district leaders, right? Who really moved through the system. And it is a powerful message of your leadership. It's like, "Great, we can begin here and we are going to end up right here in the seat, in the room, in the chair." So congratulations and thanks for sharing that. Megan, what about you? Something we leave off. Dalila: So something for me is I have a passion for teaching mathematics. As a child, I always enjoyed math, but sort of struggled with it a bit as I got older because I didn't have teachers that I found developed that same passion for me. So as a teacher, I always found it to be pressing that I ignited that passion in my students. And a goal that I always had for students is when they left my classroom, the last day of school, they would tell me that math was their favorite subject, that they enjoyed math. And I can say with confidence that 95% of the students that I've had felt that way. Brandon: It's so good. And as we think about this podcast and the work that we're doing, and it's so focused on multilingual learners and language development, we've actually been talking to other educators who are like, "No, that language development is happening outside of just our ELA classrooms and our humanities classrooms." It's an integrated language experience everywhere. And I think math is so scary for a lot of our kids and we build this sort of math mindset. I love hearing about your passion, but then also how you're shifting that thinking for kids. Brandon: All right. I feel really lucky because I get to partner with you on a personal level through Medley and your commitment to multilingual learners and adaptive technology to support them has been really clear. We'll talk about Medley because I'm lucky we get to do that. But I'm also really curious from a district level, how do you think about intentional technology adoption? We're in this moment in ed tech where the biggest failure is actually implementation. So, tell me a little bit about the process you go through for evaluating and then rolling out new tools, particularly tools that are going to be in front of our most vulnerable learners. Dalila: So this is why Megan is here by my side because she knows how to implement, for sure. And I needed someone that was passionate about MLs and how to implement it in a way that focused not in the ESL classroom, in the general education classroom. And how could I do that? I am at the district level, so it's hard sometimes to know what's happening in the trenches, as I always say. And I, one thing as a district leader, I always told myself is not to forget about the trenches, having been a second-grade teacher most of my teaching career. It's hard. Megan, thankfully, wanted to partner with me and kind of guided me on how to roll this out the best way, also having her take a look at Medley to show her how powerful it was. Having been at the beginning with all of you at Medley, I mean, I knew this was going to be amazing. So now it's just how we can make that amazing everywhere. The way we did it here at Martin, I've replicated it with the other middle schools, and now we're working on the high school. But I feel like there needs to be a point person at each school that believes in it as strongly as I believe in it in order for it to be as successful as it's been here. Brandon: You have become the model for us in implementation in many ways because we've now, what we talk about, learning from you, is district champion and then school-based champion. And Megan, you have become a school-based champion for Medley. Tell me a little bit how that happens and then also, you still have to do the work of getting other teachers to be thinking about it, to be supporting it, particularly because it's a tool that lives outside of the ESL classroom, right? It's a tool that goes to content classrooms with kids. So, tell me a little bit about your thinking and your strategy. Dalila: Sure. So when Dalila brought this to the table, the benefit was that it really solved this instructional problem that teachers were having with providing just-right scaffolds for students who have different abilities. Dalila: So not just thinking about the typical student on an IEP or on a 504, but now we have these ML students who have maybe similar needs but different needs as well and what scaffold supports will support them in their growth. Dalila: We started with a very small group of sixth graders, I believe. There was about eight to 10 of them. Once we saw the success that they were having and the ease of it, we quickly moved on to adding more students. Dalila: Once the students were comfortable using Medley within their ML support classroom with their ML teacher, we then shared the information with staff. And the benefit, I think, of Medley is it's not something extra that teachers have to really learn or even really use, but just knowing that it's a tool that's there to support their students and really simply, the only thing they have to provide to students is digital access to curriculum materials. From there, students have the ability to advocate for themselves, figure out what tools are needed to access the material. So it's been a huge success. Dalila: She knew from her experience as a child from immigrants too. Our excitement that we wish we had this for our parents, for me, it was there. So it was amazing. Dalila: For me, seeing the students feeling empowered, they knew there was a click of a button and they could translate a word or look at a picture. Being there and seeing that and witnessing that empowerment for students was just huge. Brandon: I'm curious for you too, as we think about your love for math and your work as a math instructional coach. Part of when we were building Medley was that it was going to follow kids into every content area, and then obviously they were going to have the proficiency-aligned supports to go with them. And we've seen, and we actually have seen this in your district too, that math became this place where, because it's a, there's so much complex language there, where it was being used. Do you think because you have been as a content teacher, teaching without typical ML supports—our math teachers are sometimes the last place that gets programmed for ESL supports given the barriers of a district. Do you think that's part of why it was easy for you to see the implementation possibilities? Dalila: Absolutely. It was just three years ago that I was in the classroom as a fifth-grade math teacher. I had a group of students who were newcomers. So they were in our newcomers program for maybe about three to four months before coming into our school and being integrated into the general classroom. This student was in a classroom with two other ML students, 20 general ed students, and me. I saw the struggle in this student being able to access math. The beauty of math I find is it's a universal language, right? So even though we're developing the vocabulary and the words, the symbols are universal and the numbers are universal. So there's a lot of ideas that can be built from even if you don't have the language, but this student even struggled with that. That was a driving force for me to be able to give these students a tool where they could be successful no matter what class they were in. Brandon: A lot of districts adopt technology top-down and then, and I did this for my roles in districts too, as well as as a school leader, we adopt top-down and then wonder why teachers don't use it. Dalila, tell me a little bit how else you think about—and this is about Medley, but really just strategies in general because I think the implementation success here brings lessons learned for all of our, all of the folks who are listening. How do you bring teachers along with you when you're rolling something new? Dalila: Information, sharing information as much as possible. Taunton can be competitive with one another, so seeing how successful one school is, they would like to be as successful there. I think the platform, the usage platform helps too to see where the gaps are, where the students are not using Medley, which is very few. Then when we see low usage with particular students, it's like, why? What's happening? Why aren't you using this? Or is it a general setting thing where we need to inform the teachers in the general setting more? So it's really looking at that, really talking to staff, again, being in the trenches and not just assuming what is happening there. Again, it's working not me being the boss, it's working alongside the people that are using it every day. Brandon: Yeah, it's that curious leadership, it sounds like. Instead of being like, "Why aren't you?" finger-wagging, it's like a real actual question, like, "Why aren't you? What's missing here? What could make it a different experience?" Dalila: So one thing that I had done was provide teachers for each curriculum area the websites and the tools that they should be assigning on Google Classroom in order for these students to be able to access this tool, and then just monitoring and asking questions and being there for teachers when they have questions. Brandon: In the previous conversation when I was visiting your school and the community, you said something to me which really stuck with me, which was that every part of the way that we think about our most vulnerable kids is that every teacher is a teacher of English language learners. And there was something I was watching with some of your educators in the building where it's like the content teacher saw themselves as an L teacher, not someone over here is helping me figure out how to serve Ls. It's like, we're all in this together. How did you get there? That's everyone's goal. Dalila: I honestly don't even know. Dalila: It's because it's Megan. Megan, she doesn't forget how it was to be in the classroom and how that struggle is real. So she's developed that trust with her teachers. Dalila: I'm very fortunate to say I love my building. Every single person here is here for the kids. Everyone is here to improve the lives of students and we strive off of the growth and the progress that they make. That's what moves us together as a building. Brandon: I love that. All right, my last question here on just technology adoption and assessment, and I love that we get to talk about Medley in particular. But when a tool works for multilingual learners, what does that actually look like and how do you evaluate success? Dalila: Evaluating success is Megan texting me and saying, "Oh my God, there was a student that just wrote so much, this was the first time." So, that's the beginning of seeing this work, seeing the teachers get excited, seeing the usage increase. So those are the surface part of it. Dalila: Honestly, and I'm thinking back to my teacher hat, but I think this is the first tool we've really had specifically for our ML students. And I think that's what stands out about this, is, and I remember even saying to you, okay, like, when are we going to create a tool for other populations of kids? Because this is amazing. But, you know, we've seen a growth in so many different areas. So first, the student that you spoke of, she's a student from Bangladesh and she, you know, lit up and said, "This is the first time I've been able to write this much" by using the scaffolds and supports that Medley provided her. And that just brought tears to my eyes because that's exactly what we hope for. Brandon: Powerful to you guys that you've created a space where I'm going to tear up, where they're safe to tell you, "I feel really good about myself. I feel like I'm doing something really great." Belonging at its core. Dalila: Absolutely. I have to give a lot of credit to our ML teacher. He has created just a space, a safe space, and all of our teachers do, but him specifically, he's created a safe space for students to be themselves, to value where they come from and to appreciate where they come from, and to share that openly and safely with everyone around them. So I want to give kudos to him too. Brandon: Yeah, I love that. Brandon: So it's good to hear about these important anecdotal stories from kids, right? Like, this is how I feel, these are successes, it's important qualitative feedback, as well from educators who are like, this there's an ease of use, all of that. But we need hard numbers. And access testing, which is incredible, is data that we only get once a year. And so how are you measuring a tool or ML progress throughout the year, the sort of dipstick measures you use? How do you know if something's working? Dalila: Sure. So another data tool we use in Taunton is i-Ready diagnostic data. And we recently just did our end-of-year testing for reading. I'm happy to report that our median typical growth score for our ML population at our building was 163% growth. Dalila: And I'd like to add that grade five in particular, also due to access testing, result of access testing, we had 18 ML students in our grade five, 11 of them are now former Ls. Brandon: Wow. Dalila: And they had 245% typical growth. Brandon: That is incredible. Is that a big shift from years prior? Dalila: Absolutely. Brandon: Yeah. Dalila: Absolutely. Brandon: Listen, I think you guys are the best and when we started having this conversation, I was like, maybe we'll talk about Medley, maybe we won't. I'm happy we are. I know, and I'm just going to say this, there's much more work than Medley happening. One tool is not a fix-all solution. Anyone who's trying to offer that is selling you a lemon. What I've watched in your building—and that's why implementation matters because it's actually the conditions for other great things to happen—what I've watched in your district is really intentional district strategy, the development of leaders on the ground who are going to implement. Megan, that's you, and who have the relationships and the trust of their colleagues to drive success. And then a celebration of kids, a celebration of educators, and you have buy-in from your content teachers that MLs are the center strategy. And you asked me when we were building, you're like, "Why don't you, like, let's build here and we will grow and do all those things." But it's actually in parallel process with you. It's like great instruction happens when we center our most vulnerable kids. All boats will rise. And so if we do MLs and we focus with kids with disabilities, we really put our the learners who require the most intentional Tier 1 support, then we can do right by all kids. And that's what I'm watching happen in your community. Congrats on those outcomes. Brandon: So Taunton isn't a massive urban district, but it's a city, right? You're about 8,000 students across 13 different schools. But you've built infrastructure that a lot of urban districts haven't. This is my fascination with mid-sized city work because sometimes we're focused on the big urban districts and some of the real innovation is happening in smaller cities that we can learn a lot from. You have newcomer academies at every grade span. You have a family welcome center with bilingual facilitators. You have an emerging L-PAC. It's an incredible support. You're thinking about smart innovation around tools that will support multilingual learners in our classrooms across their content areas. How did all of this come together? Was there a moment where the district decided, "This is going to be a priority," or was it piecemeal? Tell me how it became such a central focus for what you're up to in Taunton. Dalila: Well, our city is led by many that came from immigrant families or are immigrants themselves. Our superintendent is an immigrant. Our director of student services is first generation here. Having that experience at the top helps with this work. Also, I, we both have been in this district for—this is my 25th year—in many different facets. I, like how you were saying in my bio, that has led for me to make connections with many people. So then when I became director of the ML program, I could lean on those that I made connections with to really up the ante. And also, I feel like being an English learner myself, I knew that our students needed more. I think one of our biggest shifts lately has been, the state of Massachusetts loves using the acronym HQIM, right? So, high quality instructional materials. And often I'm asked to get a different ESL curriculum by my ESL teachers or others, and I say, "No, because our students deserve the best." So if these are high quality instructional materials, we are to accommodate, we are not to modify, right? So how do we accommodate this material, these resources, in order for students to get exactly what they need and what they deserve? So I feel like that's been one of the biggest shifts. This speaks a lot to the growth that we're seeing. Medley came at the right exact time when we really were rolling out these HQIMs. Even the ESL teacher here teaches Investigating History, and he, that's his ESL instruction, is through that curriculum resource. It's been a huge shift. The equity of it is amazing to see, to show people that yes, we can do it as English learners. Yes, we have this knowledge within us. You just need to figure out how to connect English to my language. I feel like we have the support within the district at all different levels. So that's that and the HQIMs together. Brandon: That's smart. It's interesting, that conversation around HQIMs, around high quality instructional materials. I think in our fields, folks who are really focused on multilingual learners, there is a fear that our kids are going to be left out of this work and this priority and we're going to have educators throwing things into AI and taking a text and saying, "Well, my kid's at a second-grade level, but they're in ninth grade," and then have it push something out for them. And the kid is then going to miss the core content, the complexity of these ideas. And that's not language barrier. It's not a barrier created by language, right? Meeting those language needs is the barrier created by language. So, so happy to hear you talk about that and how you're thinking about that and how that is the central priority for the district, like bringing those materials to every single kid. I see you. Dalila: And also, to bring in the family welcome center, again, these connections that I've made. So our director of student services, I was her assistant principal when she was principal. Her parents are immigrants as well. So that connection and that that belief of English learners, she's brought that into the family welcome center and she leads the community facilitators with that. And she even, community facilitators, we are fortunate enough to have Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole speaking community facilitators. We're still looking for a Cape Verdean Creole speaking one, but she even the other community facilitators that don't have that language, that just have English, we have the tools, we have an interpreter service, we have translation services, we have all of that, that she brings such a community sense with with that team that it really, it works. So it's all hands on deck and I feel like families make that first initial connection with a community facilitator and they stay with them throughout their child's school. Yeah, I mean that experience of walking into a district, then enrolling your kid and feeling like, "Oh, we belong here," and then getting down to the school site, meeting the team at your kid's individual school, one of the 13, and being like, "We belong here," and then getting in the classroom and having high quality instructional materials and you're like, "Oh, I'm not getting a separate reading. You're not giving me a different book than the rest of the class. You think I'm smart enough to read this. It's going to take me a little bit more work or it's going to look a little different for me, but I'm good enough to access this." That's also part of accelerated outcomes. It's a feeling to take the vulnerable intellectual risk to be courageous in your learning. Brandon: Megan, on the ground, many of us as educators, particularly around high quality instructional materials, we were trained that you're going to give your L something else. Like, "Oh, they're in an intervention, so they have to get something different," versus, "We're content is the priority." How do you think about changing hearts and minds on the ground and bringing the team along with you? Dalila: I think we're fortunate in Taunton that they have invested in, I think the best of the best of curriculum materials, where there are already some embedded supports for our different subgroups of students, ML students in particular. You know, with my meetings with teachers, my monthly planning and data meetings, our ML population is always at the forefront of those conversations. So, you know, within our materials, what are the supports, as we're planning this lesson or this unit, that we might provide to those students who will need them? Um, so we're just, it's just always a conversation and thinking, and we're always thinking about, you know, scaffolds and supports that those students might need. Brandon: Yeah, it seems like it's just built into the thinking. And then I will add on, it sounds like, Megan, because you're monitoring data regularly around our kids, you're not waiting till the end of the year to find out how our MLs did. It allows for that conversation to be at the forefront. Is that a fair assumption? Dalila: Yes, data is always looked at at our meetings. So we're looking at it monthly, I'm looking at it weekly, we're looking at the progress that our students are making. Brandon: I love that. Yeah, that makes everyone a teacher of MLs when ML data is at the center. All right, I want to talk about something that I'm fascinated by in Taunton, which is this newcomer support, particularly because there's really interesting data around your ML population. You had over 200 students in a single year. Those students showed incredibly strong progress on MCAS, which is the state assessment here in Massachusetts. For a listener who's running an ML program, similar, who's thinking about newcomer support, walk me through those first few days and weeks. As a student, as a family, what's that experience like? Dalila: So, again, they see a community facilitator right away. So there's a family welcome center that they go to and our multilingual community facilitators are all housed there because that's usually where the families that speak another language other than English go. Making that connection there. And then what I love and what I've seen, I had a community facilitator speak with me the other day and she had a family that she didn't wasn't familiar with the culture. She researched the culture so that she could understand the different dynamics of the family, how to approach the family. So there's always that back research as well, which I appreciate. And then also, the community facilitator most times will bring the child to the school. So we'll meet the families there, we'll introduce the families to the building admin, sometimes even bring the child right to the classroom. So it's just having that someone to fall on, right? That's important for families and especially for for the student. And then, you know, the teachers understanding where the MLs are coming from, you know, how scary it can be. Now, with our influx of students that we had, we had an emergency shelter here in Taunton and it was April of that school year. The building leaders—this is—it just warmed my heart, especially at the elementary level. She's an immigrant, that principal is an immigrant, and she said, "Stop all instruction, love comes first. We need to really open our arms to these students because we don't know why they're here, how they got here." So having that as the initial, that's what caused the growth, the positive growth, is them feeling that sense of belonging, feeling love. Love is huge, you know? Brandon: Connection. Dalila: Yes, and connecting with them. And also seeing other students because we're so diverse, we have other students that are not English learners but share the same culture, be a part of this, be leaders, help them out. We have a program at the high school, it's called Pals, I think, and the students, if they speak that same language but are not English learners, they are the ones that will escort the kids from class to class and really answer any questions and such. So making former English learners or English learners currently but have been in our school system for a while, be the leaders and really soften that entrance to to our school system. Brandon: I one, love that program. I'm going to talk about it. What a smart way of leveraging leadership amongst all kids. And what an asset-based way of seeing language as a power. There is such leadership potential in your language. And I will say this as a friend, like it's part of your story and where you are, both of you in your professional work. But how lucky for a kid to see that early on. I'm going to share that strategy often, so thank you for sharing it with me. Dalila: You're welcome. Brandon: I'm wondering, you know, you have the newcomer academy that serves students with very limited English proficiencies at elementary, middle, and high. How do you decide when a student's ready to transition out? And what does that handoff look like when the student is moving from academy to a more typical setting? Dalila: So, we are undergoing a huge shift right now because unfortunately, we don't have many immigrant students. So, prior, the newcomer academy was based on immigration. So they would get screened and some students are immigrants, but their official language is English. So obviously, the parents, there's always a conversation with the parents. Like, these are the programs that we offer here. What do you feel most comfortable? This is what your child has, the English proficiency, this is where they are in these levels and the domains. So there's always that conversation of, so the parents are the ones that make that final decision. So before, we used to have a lot of newcomers. So after one year, the students would go into their neighborhood school. Very few would stay maybe another, depending on what time they came during the school year. But because our numbers were so high, we didn't have the privilege to keep them longer than that year. So what we're finding is, and this is why Medley, again, came in perfect time, because we find that a lot of students that are still in level one and two struggle in the general setting because the general setting teacher might be intimidated on how to support the students and how to scaffold. So this has been a game-changer with that with Medley. And now, this is fresh. I came in and kind of freaked out with Megan. I'm like, "I don't know, I need your eyes to look to see what our program is going to look like next year." So we are providing supports in every building, more supports, and we're focusing on levels one and two where there will be a teacher just focusing on levels one and two, an ESL teacher, who will be at the elementary level, will be in literacy and in math both with the children. So to really provide additional scaffolds for the students. And then the general setting have another separate teacher focus on them. When we do this, and with this new structure, when we have, we have immigrants coming in but not as much, but they now will be going into their neighborhood schools. And I feel like that will strengthen our sense of belonging even more because one, we have the, we'll have the supports in each building. Two, they will be with their friends from their community, and they won't be moving around the way they they were. So they would go to one school one year, their neighborhood school another year, and if they were like fourth graders or seventh graders, they'd move to another school their third year, their middle school or the high school. You know, so that's a lot of transition for somebody that's brand new in this in this country. Brandon: On a personal level, I remember my own ESL experience and there is something really powerful about seeing other kids who you either find out were in ESL and you're like, "Oh, wait, you're, your English is great," or you're introduced, you're watching their growth at the same time. And so that visibility, I think is really powerful. And at the same time, it sounds like you're really intentional around how you still build that connection between kids who are sharing culture and sharing language. Dalila: These are all our children regardless. We need to embrace and we need to share the assets that they have, right? Of being immigrants, of their language that they speak and just having the students be a part of that school culture for longer than just one year, I think is huge. Because, and we were seeing like students crying their eyes out when they would leave the newcomer academy because it was such such a community, you know? So now having that community at each school, I think is going to be a game-changer and I think the affective filter, right, like the anxiety will lower and I am hoping and I and I believe that the growth will be even more than what we're seeing. Brandon: That's interesting. Again, speaks to the leadership across the district to have a program, recognize where it had successes, look at the community in front of you, shift gears, but bring the best from that program into the rest of the community. It sounds like that's what you're doing. Megan, are like, tell me how you're feeling about this big change. Like, what do you think on the ground and how, you know, how are educators feeling? Dalila: I'm excited about it because I think it will bring more support to the students that we have. When it gets to the building level, we are very intentional about where we place the students in order to get them the most, the maximum supports necessary. We think about the child and their language and trying to make a connection with other students who speak the same language who are also ML students or maybe previous ML students or just know their cultural background to make them more comfortable. So I think that's also happening at the middle and the elementary school, not just the high school. But I think I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be great for the students. It will create more growth for our students, give them more opportunities to feel included and feel connected to their to their peers. Brandon: I have two more questions I want to ask you both because I'm worried that we're running out of time and I could talk to you all day. But I have found this work, you know, at your family welcome centers, connected to the work that is happening on schools, connected to the work that's happening in your classrooms, and it's all a really intentional strategy around supporting multilingual learners, centering them, making sure that they feel like they belong. But there's something else that's really happening and it's work that's really centered around the parents and the families feeling connected to the district. And I've seen a real intentionality around that. Tell me what you have learned about what multilingual families actually want from the district versus what the district assumes they need. How have you been able to build with your multilingual families at the center? Dalila: So, this year actually, the central office, they've scheduled family gatherings at their, in their neighborhoods, which is awesome. So, invitations go out typically for the schools that are closest to that location. We're seeing an increase in multilingual families attend, and we just had one last Thursday which the superintendent and the director of student services were, they were both of them were amazed at how many ML families went. And it was part of, Martin was one of the schools that it was, that were mainly invited, but we invited all our ML families throughout the district. The central office people go and speak to the families. There are interpreters there. They ask, like, what can we do differently to provide you support? And one big thing is there are schools that really have, use the interpreters perfectly, always, always communicate. But the families say there are times that they go to other places that that's not available. So we've learned how can we bring this message? What can we do differently? And now with families being part of their neighborhood school, I think it's going to be even more, it'll strengthen the L-PAC. The L-PAC has been a struggle for me as director to get it going, but I was talking to the director of student services and I said, these events that you have are going to be mini L-PACs because we need to build that community within our families first. And instead of, because the L-PAC too, and people from DESE have told me this too, it's not culturally sound. It's bylaws and you need to have a president and a vice president and it's not what we are used to, right? It's like culture and community and food and talk and all of that. So really developing that through these events and we are seeing, it was just so beautiful to see how many ML families went. And I hope by throughout next year too, that we'll just keep building that, especially now that they will be part of that school, their child's entire time at elementary, entire time in middle school, instead of keep on switching. Brandon: That's smart. And for folks who are listening, when we talk about an L-PAC, we're talking about an English Language Parent Advisory Council. And I hear you, right? Like, it sounds great. Yes, of course, let's make one for the community. But, you know, it's Robertson's Rules and all the things, right? So, Robert's Rules, Robertson's Rules, it has rules, I can't remember. But bylaws, all the things. So I see you and then how do we make it feel like a place people want to go and want to spend their time, particularly folks who are navigating much more complex lives. Like this is a real, it's a, you know, it's a lift. Megan, on the ground, what about you? How do you think about this and how we're bringing, you know, multilingual families into the communities in a way that's meaningful? Dalila: I think just from a teacher perspective, they're parents, right? Parents are parents. So whether you're multilingual or not, you know, there's a need to be able to communicate about your child and their progress. Being provided with tools like translation services and interpretation services, we didn't have that 10 years ago. That wasn't readily available where you could just call a hotline and say, "I need to speak to this parent, I need this language, you know, help me." So that has just enriched that communication with families. We also use an app called ParentSquare, which will automatically translate messages to the family's chosen language. So as me as a teacher, that was a game-changer in being able to quickly communicate with parents about specific needs in the classroom. You know, having the message of you're important, we value your your culture and you're part of this community. For the most part, we've always had that because, as we've mentioned many times already, Taunton is a community of immigrants. You know, we both were born and raised in Taunton, but we are children of immigrants. And there's, you know, there were Portuguese people all around us growing up and there still are. You know, we have churches, we have community churches that are based on cultures. There's a Haitian church, there's a Portuguese church. So there's stores, you know, different cultural stores and so I think that's why, another reason why people feel welcomed here. Brandon: And you're meeting them at those places, right? Building relationships with the places they already go to make sure they see school as a partner there. It's really smart. I could talk to you all day, but eventually we have to end our conversation. So I'm sad that it has come to an end. But before we say goodbye, you guys are thinking about the learning of our kids, the learning of our educators, facilitating and implementing that learning in a really thoughtful way. But what's something or someone that you're learning from right now? Dalila: I'm learning from Megan because she really, she has a different way of thinking. And this is with everything, not even just with Medley. My favorite thing is that she does not forget what it's like to be a classroom teacher and and that is a feeling I've mentioned it before, but that is a feeling that we could not forget. Because teachers, it is hard and it's different. It's different than when I was teaching. So to really have her as a sounding board of what's happening and she keeps that experience at in her heart. So she's definitely someone that I'm learning a lot from. Brandon: What about you, Megan? Dalila: And I am going to choose Dalila. I just want to thank you for taking me on this journey, Dalila, and enriching my own professionalism with working with ML students. And your passion, your passion ignites my passion. So thank you. Dalila: You're welcome. Thank you. Brandon: This is an audio, so I'm just letting folks know there's some, there's some tears in our conversation, which, this is work that starts from the heart. So I think that's the right way to do it. And as our year, school years are closing across the country, some have already closed, some are closing now, it's inevitable that we're quite reflective about like, what did we do this year? What do we want to do better? And it's why I was reminding you earlier to celebrate the win and make sure you make some time to do that because you've had incredible growth in your community. But I'm leaving here with lots, but I'm also, I hope our listeners are leaving really thinking about the power of partnership and doing this work together. It is clear there was a choice here that you made to sit down and and have the conversation as a team. Dalila: Thank you. Brandon: Yes. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of Leading Multilingual Learning. And thanks, Dalila and Megan, for a great conversation. We're going to see you next time on Leading Multilingual Learning, powered by Medley Learning.