Academic disparities between Latinx English learners (EL) and their English-proficient peers, as well as their EL peers from other ethnolinguistic backgrounds, have existed in the K-12 public school system for decades with little improvement. Given the current immigration crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border, this webinar, hosted by the Alumnae Association and led by Noel Emilius ’09, will examine why it is crucial for schools and their stakeholders to begin discussing the problematic framing of the Latinx EL achievement gap, the contributing factors to the academic disparities, and, ultimately, how they can create opportunities for Latinx EL students to succeed culturally, linguistically and academically.

Noel Emilius ’09 graduated from Mount Holyoke with an English/education double major. She began her teaching career that same year in the Holyoke public school system, where she taught middle school English language arts for three years to English learners. In 2012, Emilius moved to Washington, D.C., where she began to teach high school English in the D.C. public school system. In 2013 Emilius received a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, and, in 2021, she received her doctorate degree from Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in creating accessible grade level curriculum content for English learners at the high school level and provides frequent training for teachers on this topic through her district, the teachers union and other nonprofit organizations.

This event will be recorded. This event is being conducted over Zoom. As the host, Mount Holyoke College reserves the right to record this session and the event sponsors will give prior notification to event participants of any intention to do so. The recording feature for others is disabled so that no one else will be able to record this session through Zoom. At all times, no recording by any other means is permitted without prior written permission from the event sponsor or as an approved accommodation.

This event will include an oral and visual presentation about U.S. immigration and education. For inquiries about the accessibility of this event or to request any accommodations, please email programs_team-g@mtholyoke.edu or call Danielle Lund at 413-538-2159. Please make accommodation requests ten business days prior to the event or sooner in order to allow for implementation time; however, in all situations, a good faith effort will be made to provide accommodations up until the time of the event.

This event is scheduled at 7 p.m. EDT on October 4. To view in your timezone, you may wish to visit Timeanddate.com for a timezone converter: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

You will receive an email confirmation upon registration for this event. If you do not receive the confirmation or have any questions about the event, please email programs_team-g@mtholyoke.edu.