Learning Opportunities

This page will be updated regularly with information about learning opportunities for educators, families and students alike. Please be sure to visit this page often to keep your self informed on upcoming events and opportunities.

Webinars on Immigration

  • The Immigrant Learning Center: Immigrant Student Success Workshops
  • With a focus on providing college access for undocumented students, the University Leaders for Educational Access and Diversity (uLEAd) offers webinars for educators to increase their knowledge of relevant issues.

BPS Office of Social Emotional Learning and Wellness Trainings

The offerings for school year 2017-2018 will be coming soon.

During the last school year, the Office of Social Emotional Learning and Wellness offered the following professional learning opportunities to deepen our educators' knowledge on immigration and increase the understanding of how it affects our students.

    • Three Trainings for school staff, one at the SEL Forum on March 28 and two others between now and June.
    • Curriculum and Instructional Coaching to Schools:
        • The Michigan Model for Health is a Comprehensive K-12 Health Education Curriculum available to BPS schools that includes Social Emotional Learning Units that address stress. The Michigan Model for Health: Skills for Health and Life comprehensive health education curriculum offers lessons in the following grades:
              • Grade 6: Stress Less: Many Ways to Handle Stress
              • Grade 7-8: Safe and Sound for Life: Social Emotional Health and Safety - many of the lessons in this binder are related to stress reduction techniques
              • High School: Social Emotional Health (Unit 2) has lessons on Self Awareness: A Key to Stress Management and What Teens Need to Know about Stress

For more information on using these resources in your classroom, please contact Suzanne Spressert, Health Education Instructional Coach, Health and Wellness Department at sspressert@bostonpublicschools.org.

District English Language Learners Advisory Committee (DELAC) Conference

In the School Year of 2015-2016, the Office of English Language Learners launched the District English Learner Advisory Committee (DELAC) initiative with the vision of creating a multicultural and multiethnic, parent-led committee comprised of EL parents and community members whose task is to provide recommendations to school and district officials in regards to programs and services provided to EL students. OELL hosts DELAC conferences during the academic year to provide parents, educators and community members with information on what our English Learner (EL) parents need to know to deepen and expand their knowledge.

Some workshop topics from previous conferences included DELAC Overview, EL Programmatic Options, Family Engagement Opportunities, BPS Budget, Tips for EL Families Navigating an IEP and Know Your Immigrant Rights. Interpretation services are provided for workshops designated for parents to ensure equitable access for all language groups, and translated copies of the agenda and handouts are also provided in district’s eight major languages.

For more information about upcoming conferences during the school year 2018-2019, please contact Ahmed Noor at anoor@bostonpublicschools.org.

Know Your Rights Workshops

The Office of English Language Learners is working with the Mayor's Office for Immigrant Advancement and the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project to provide Know Your Rights workshops for BPS schools. This workshop will inform families and staff of information regarding basic immigrants rights.

If you are interested in hosting a Know Your Rights workshop at your school, please contact Melody Soltani (msoltani@bostonpublicschools.org) for more information.


Tech Goes Home Workshops

OELL hosts Tech Goes Home (TGH) workshops for our BPS EL parents/caregivers and families. Parents and families have the opportunity to participate in a 15-hour workshop to learn 21st century skills that helps them to support their child’s education in one of the languages offered (Cape Verdean Creole, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese). The workshop covers topics such as how to track your child’s school bus, grade and attendance online, how to communicate with teachers and counselors through emails and how to search for web-based family resources. Upon completion of the training, participating families are offered the option to purchase a brand new Chromebook computer at a low price. OELL also assists families offset the cost of the computer that they are eligible to purchase through TGH, and a graduation ceremony is hosted at the end of the workshop to celebrate and honor the participants who completed the training.