Dr. Margarita Espino Calderón is Professor Emerita/Senior Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University. She has worked on numerous research and development projects focusing on reading for English learners funded by the U.S.D.O.E Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Labor, and collaborated with Harvard and the Center for Applied Linguistics on a longitudinal study funded by the NICHD.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York funded her five-year empirical study to develop Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners (ExC-ELL), a comprehensive professional development model for math, science, social studies, language arts, ESL and SPED teachers that integrates language, literacy and content. She also developed two other effective evidence-based programs: Reading Instructional Goals for Older Readers (RIGOR) for Newcomers with Interrupted Formal Education. Additionally, the Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC) program was developed for dual language instruction and is listed in the What Works Clearinghouse.

Margarita collaborated with George Washington University on a Title III five-year grant to implement and further study A Whole-School Approach to Professional Development with ExC-ELL in Virginia school districts.

She is a consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice and Office of Civil Rights. She serves and has served on national language and literacy research panels. Margarita is also President/CEO of Margarita Calderón and Associates, Inc. Dr. Calderón and her team of 10 Associates conduct ExC-ELL comprehensive multi-year professional development and on-site coaching in schools, districts, state-wide and international Institutes. She has over 100 publications on language and literacy for ELs.

Diane Staehr Fenner, PhD, is the president of SupportEd (SupportEd.com), a woman-owned small business located in the Washington, DC metro area that she founded in 2011. Dr. Staehr Fenner and SupportEd are dedicated to empowering multilingual learners (MLs) and their educators. Dr. Staehr Fenner leads her team to provide ML professional development, coaching, technical assistance, and curriculum and assessment support to school districts, states, organizations, and the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to forming SupportEd, Dr. Staehr Fenner was an English language development (ELD) teacher, dual language assessment teacher, and ELD assessment specialist in Fairfax County Public Schools, VA. She speaks German and Spanish and has taught in Berlin, Germany and Veracruz, Mexico. She grew up on a dairy farm in central New York State and is a proud first-generation college graduate. This is the eighth book she has written on ML education (and counting), with other titles including Unlocking Multicultural Learners’ Potential: Strategies for Making Content Accessible, Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity, and Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators. She is a frequent keynote speaker on ML education at conferences across North America. She earned her PhD in Multilingual/Multicultural Education at George Mason University and her MAT in TESOL at the School for International Training. You can connect with her by email at Diane@SupportEd.com or on Twitter/X and LinkedIn at @DStaehrFenner.

Tonya Ward Singer, M.F.A., is a professional learning leader with a deep commitment to ensuring diverse learners excel with rigorous expectations. She consults nationally helping K-12 educators realize new possibilities in language and literacy learning to close opportunity gaps for ELs and students in poverty.

Tonya has taught at multiple grade levels as a classroom teacher, reading teacher, and EL specialist, and has extensive experience helping school leaders transform learning at scale. Her choice work is supporting educators in launching and sustaining site-based, continuous inquiry around live lessons. She has been collaborating extensively with multiple districts developing, testing, and refining observation inquiry, the focus of this book.

An expert in pedagogy for linguistically diverse learners, Tonya has co-authored curriculum for international publishers including Scholastic, Longman and Oxford University Press. She thrives on leveraging research and innovation to solve educational challenges, and inspiring others to do the same.

Shawn Slakk is the CEO and Founder of ABCDSS Consulting Consortium and works with teachers, administrators, school & state agencies to offer strategies and supports for emergent bilinguals and their classmates both K-12 and adults. He is co-author and developer of new professional development sessions for all levels of educators, focusing on whole-school implementation, administrative support and coaching. As a former Certified WIDA Trainer and Title III SIOP Coach, Shawn brings a wide understanding of a variety of strategies and how they relate to ELs, language acquisition and lesson delivery.

He served as the Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners (RETELL) Coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education where he and his team were responsible for developing, implementing, training trainers and evaluating a Sheltered English Instruction endorsement course for administrators and classroom teachers. The RETELL endorsement is required in Massachusetts to obtain or retain an educator license with more than 40,000 teachers and administrators earning this endorsement. Throughout his career, Shawn taught ESL in grades K-University, Spanish across all grade levels and curriculums, and even once taught Japanese to K-2 students. He has served as an elementary and middle school administrator, served at the Central Office level as a district coach and as a state level coordinator. He started his teaching career teaching Adult ESL at Spokane Community College in Washington state.

Shawn’s curriculum and instruction doctorate from the University of Virginia will focus on supporting the needs and instruction of additional-language learners and teachers in reading and writing. He holds an MA in TESOL from Eastern Washington University, a Master of School Administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a bachelor’s in English and Spanish education from Whitworth University.

Dr. Debbie Zacarian, founder of Zacarian & Associates, provides professional development, strategic planning, and technical assistance for K-16 educators of culturally and linguistically diverse populations. She has served as an expert consultant for school districts, universities, associations, and organizations including the Massachusetts Parent Information Resource Center and Federation for Children with Special Needs.

Debbie has worked with numerous state and local education agencies and written the language assistance programming policies for many rural, suburban, and urban districts. Debbie served on the faculty of University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she co-wrote and was the co-principal investigator of a National Professional Development grant initiative supporting the professional preparation of educators of multilingual learners. Debbie also designed and taught courses for pre- and in-service administrators and teachers on culturally responsive teaching and supervision practices, multilingual development, and ethnographic research. In addition, she served as a program director at the Collaborative for Educational Services where she provided professional development for thousands of educators of multilingual students and partnered with Fitchburg State University in co-writing and enacting a National Professional Development initiative that supported STEM education. Debbie also directed the Amherst Public Schools bilingual and English learner programming where she and the district received state and national honors.

The author of more than 100 publications, her most recent professional books include: Beyond Crises: Overcoming Linguistic and Cultural Inequities in Communities. Schools and Classrooms; Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students; Teaching to Empower: taking action to foster student agency, self-confidence, and collaboration; and Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress.