Dr. José Medina is the founder and Chief Educational Advocate for Dr. José Medina: Educational Solutions. Prior to establishing the boutique consulting firm, Dr. Medina served as Research Scientist and Director of Dual Language and ESL Education at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) in Washington, DC. José provides technical assistance, professional development, and job-embedded support to schools and districts across the United States and globally. He is a former school principal and district leader who has served as an administrator/educator/advocate at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Dr. Medina is a co-author of the third edition and widely-used Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education. He is also the author of three bilingual poetry books based on his testimonio.

Tanya Amodio-Kovacs is an Associate in Bilingual Education in the New York State Education Department (NYSED) Office of Early Learning (OEL). OEL provides oversight and guidance to school districts in the development of policy, implementation and evaluation of programs and policies related to educating students in prekindergarten to third grade, in alignment with the New York State (NYS) Board of Regents Early Childhood Policy. Prior to this position, she served as an Associate in Bilingual Education in the NYSED Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages supporting the implementation of statewide policy and guidance for nearly 300,000 English Language Learners (ELLs) and their families.

Tanya has served in a variety of leadership roles that have afforded her the opportunity to collaborate with NYSED senior leadership to develop policies, guidance, and resources that have impacted students in prekindergarten through grade 12. Tanya co-led NYSED's 2021 P-3 Virtual Summer Institute in partnership with the NYS Council on Children and Families. She helped shape the development and release of the Emergent Multilingual Learner (EML) Language Profile, guidance, and resources for EMLs in prekindergarten. Tanya assisted in the review and revision of the NYS English Language Arts Learning Standards to ensure all students, including multilingual learners, have equitable access to a set of Standards and resources that foster the literacy and language skills needed for college and career readiness. She supported the 2018 Board of Regents Early Childhood Workgroup's Blue Ribbon Committee and contributed to the development of the NYSED Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education Framework. Tanya was instrumental in building NYSED's partnerships with Institutions of Higher Education in providing Clinically Rich-Intensive Teacher Institutes to meet the shortage of NYS certified teachers of multilingual learners.

Tanya has 22 years of experience in education. She has served as a classroom teacher (grades Kindergarten, 1, and 2), an English as a New Language teacher in both monolingual and dual language settings, an adult English immersion teacher, a new teacher mentor, and teacher leader. Tanya holds a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oswego and holds a master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from SUNY Albany. She is advancing her graduate studies in the Educational Leadership Certification Program through Stony Brook University.

Kelley is the president of Equitable Early Learning Solutions, Inc., a private educational consulting corporation based in Central New York that supports educators, practitioners, and educational leaders across the state in a variety of areas, including implementation of multi-tiered systems of support for behavior, social and emotional learning for students and adults, trauma-informed care, self-care for educators (including preventing teacher burnout and addressing teacher retention at the organizational level), and culturally responsive and sustaining education practices. Kelley utilizes individualized and tailored solutions that can include on-site training, webinars and online learning, instructional coaching, and embedded facilitation and technical assistance to build capacity, focus on compassion, and advance educational equity and excellence.

Stephanie McMillen, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Syracuse University and a certified Speech-Language Pathologist. Dr. McMillen's research evaluates language and literacy development in diverse populations, including bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder. Clinically, she has worked with children experiencing speech, language, and communication impairments.

Vice President of Multilingual Teaching and Learning for the American Reading Company, Mario Palma has served in the public health and public education fields for the past 20 years. He obtained his B.A. in developmental psychology from the State University of New York at Purchase. He has a M.A. in education with a concentration in bilingual education from the City University of New York, Lehman College. After serving as a bilingual teacher in New York City, he moved on to teaching and learning on a national scale as an executive bilingual coach, working with school and district leadership teams across the country to establish and monitor systems for adult and student learning using cognitive apprenticeship and improvement science methodologies. Mario has presented at Bilingual Education Conferences across the country for the last 10 years and has studied bilingual education policy, programming, and instructional methods extensively with bilingual experts on the ARC Academic Advisory Board. His work focuses on developing multilingual academic partnerships with school districts across the country and developing content that is meaningful and relevant to students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as they prepare to be global citizens.

Jennifer Raponi has 18 years of experience in language acquisition. She began her career as a Speech Therapist and went on to teach K-12 TESOL. Jennifer is also certified in B-12 Literacy Development. Literacy development for English Learners is her area of special interest.

Dr. Diane Rodríguez is a Professor at Fordham University, School of Education. Her research is at the intersection of special education and bilingual education. Dr. Rodríguez has been an invited speaker at national and international conferences on Special Education and Bilingual Education. Univision selected Dr. Rodriguez as an example of "Orgullo de Nuestra Comunidad," which highlights individuals who give back to the community. She was recognized for her work with individuals with disabilities. She has published extensively in journals and is the co-author of the books (1) The Bilingual Advantage and (2) STEAM meets Story, both published by Teachers College Press. She is the founder of Every Girl is Important, a non-for-profit organization to educate and empower young girls (www.everygirlisimportant.org).