Sugely Solano: I feel we should all expand into map data, smarter, balance data all assessment data that exists. Students should be a part of because they’re the ones having to do these tests, and so they should be part of the conversations in learning their growth.

And if we wanna use the, the data [00:36:00] to drive and inform the instruction of students, then they should be a part of it so that we’re getting the most out of the data to correctly inform the instruction that we’re trying to, to ultimate get to.

Mandi Morris: Dr. Sugely Solano is the administrator of multilingual learners at Brandywine School District in Delaware. She has 17 years of experience in educating, leading, and advocating for multilingual learners in the pre-K through 12 schools. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership, focusing on improving the use of guidance and data to inform the instruction of multilingual learners. Her 2023 dissertations research on English learners earned her the [00:01:00] Richard El Esky Award for Creative Research and Literacy at the University of Delaware Celebration of Excellence. Dr. Sugely, thank you so much for being here today. I’m so excited about this conversation.

Sugely Solano: Thank you for inviting me and having me.

Mandi Morris: So I think we should just start is tell us some about your school district. What is Brandywine School district like? What is your role like in the students you’re serving?

Sugely Solano: So this is currently my 17th year in Brandywine School district. I work with multilingual learners. For 16 years and then this year I was actually promoted to oversee war languages and immersion programming in the district. So it is like a dream job right now because I get to work with.

Even language learning multilingual learners in all of the areas. Throughout the school district, we have a total of 16 schools and our population of English learners is very diverse. Over [00:02:00] 40 languages are represented in those, in the languages that are spoken, and we’ve been serving English learners for since, for many, many years.

But the population has doubled since I’ve been here.

Mandi Morris: Wow, the population has doubled. So tell us a little bit about what does your population of students look like right now, and as that population is, it sounds like growing really quickly. How is it changing?

Sugely Solano: So when I first started 17 years ago, we had about 300 students identify that we were actively serving. And right now we are at 690 students with 200 students in monitoring status. So the population has stayed diverse and sort of the same, where 30% of the multilingual learners we are actively serving speak Spanish.

And then our second most spoken language is Bengali. And the third most spoken language is Arabic.

Mandi Morris: Wow, that’s really an interesting [00:03:00] population of students that you’re able to serve there. I wonder, what does that look like for you as a school district? We talk, to some school districts where they have, it’s 90% of their students are Spanish speakers. They’re able to really lean into family networks and interpretation of translation services in Spanish.

But it sounds like you have three pretty significant population for three different languages. What does that look like for you to be able to support those different families?

Sugely Solano: So a lot of the English learner teachers themselves do not speak, Bengali or Arabic. One or two may speak Spanish. So we rely a lot on visuals, on pictures, on gestures, and to be able to connect with newcomers when they first begin. In the district. So that’s one of the main ways we tend to support students.

We rely on a language line a lot which provides us 24 hour translation services. [00:04:00] And this is provided by the state. So that’s a helpful resource that allows us to connect with families. We use ClassDojo and we use, the talking points to communicate with families and Microsoft Translate or Google Translate , we find ways to, to connect with students often.

Mandi Morris: Sounds like you get creative with the resources you do. Teachers are good at that, right? So I wanna go in a minute to your WIDA presentation and dig into that. Super interesting, presentation and concepts there. I’m excited about going into, but before we go there let’s learn a little bit about you.

What drew you to this work? What was your journey to, to come into this place where you are to serve multilingual learners?

Sugely Solano: That’s a great question. So I am an immigrant. I am a proud Dominican immigrant. I came to the US when I was, 12 years old. Spanish is my native language. So when I [00:05:00] came to the US the only state I’ve ever lived in is Delaware. I spoke no English at all, so I learned English as a second language when I joined middle school in eighth grade.

So that experience was very eyeopening. I never imagined myself, and I never had the idea that joining a different country was going to come with so many challenges and, and such a huge experience. So when I graduated high school I really wanted to continue school ’cause my parents, just kept telling me that school was the number one thing that was priority and they really wanted me to get a degree. So, but in high school I felt that, I was not one of those students that was targeted to pursue school. It felt like people assumed that I didn’t want to continue school.

And that the group of kids that, of friends that were in high school then did not want to [00:06:00] continue. Through college or education. So when I graduated, I signed up. I knew I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what so I joined the local community college where I started taking classes and then I thought I wanted to be a dental hygiene.

And then midway through my first semester I realized that I did not. Like dealing with blood or patience or things like that. So then I enjoyed the psychology class that I first took, and then I said, this is what I wanna do. So that prompted me to think about the students that were left behind in my high school.

So then from there I decided that I wanted to become a counselor to help students like me pursue college education.

Mandi Morris: Sugely, I wanna go back for a moment. You said something that was really powerful to me It felt like the adults in your school or the adults around [00:07:00] you didn’t see you as a student that was going to go on past high school to go into, into college or higher ed. I wonder when you reflect on that, what did that sound like to you?

What? What was the language that you were hearing or the assumptions maybe, that you were hearing that made you as a teenager feel like they don’t see me as someone who should be going on to college?

Sugely Solano: It was heartbreaking at that moment. I didn’t realize how big of the impact it was. But. When I hear, when I hear announcements being done about colleges or students getting into colleges or counselors meeting with students students like me, were not targeted for that or were not being represented in those conversations.

So. It felt like everyone assumed that we were just not interested. So that was one of the [00:08:00] reasons why when I left I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to apply or what were the next steps in my parents because they didn’t speak a lot of English. They didn’t know how to guide me through that experience. However, it was interesting because my older brother had gotten into Penn State, so I knew that there was a way, I just didn’t know how,

Mandi Morris: Wow. How has that informed your work today?

Sugely Solano: It is why I became an advocate for multilingual learners or any student that may be a disadvantage at times. When I, when I did my master’s in school counseling, that was my goal to be able to guide students in pursuing colleges and making decisions, informing parents on how to do these things.

But unfortunately, that didn’t work out. Because in Delaware, getting a, a school counselor position at that point was pretty tough. The like positions didn’t open as [00:09:00] often, so I ended up having to switch after my first year as a school counselor. I was bumed because of seniority out of that position.

So then I was, I was kind of heartbreaking, but then it opened the door for me to do the position that I’m in now. So when I. Applied for this position as a teacher and coordinator, I didn’t realize how I was gonna have more access to students to be able to do what I dreamed of doing as a counselor because I had, I now had access to all schools, like a total of 15, 16 school instead of being a school counselor where I was only in one school.

Mandi Morris: Wow. Isn’t it cool when you look back in life and you think. That was a crossroad and I didn’t see it in the moment. I, all I saw was a door closing and not realizing that this other path was going to bring me to something that was a better fit for me [00:10:00] or was going to enable you to impact so many more students’ lives.

I love that. I love those moments of hindsight. And it sounds like it brought you really in, into the right spot. So then you’re now in a space where you’re able to impact. An incredible amount of students who are learning English. When did you decide to get your doctorate? What drew you to that?

That next step? You just love learning. You keep going.

Sugely Solano: Yes. I just, I loved learning and I have two teenagers. I have a, a senior who’s graduating this year and then a junior. I. And Dominic and Amaya, and when they got to be early teens, it started to feel like, hmm, like I have more downtime now where they were not as dependent of me as in the beginning.

So then I decided to what can I do next? And I first, I launched a, a website called, raising language learners.com where I’ve decided to share resources [00:11:00] with families on about this US school system so that more parents could become aware of what school looked like. And then from there I said, well, maybe I can do more.

I decided to do my doctorate.

Mandi Morris: Wow. That is so cool. So this journey is so interesting. What brought you into the ML space? I love learning about that and it’s. So cool how, you had this obstacle in high school that you overcame and then you just kept going. It just propelled you to keep getting a master’s and then a doctorate.

I would love for you to talk some about your NEA publication. It was titled Why pronouncing Students’ Names Correctly is so Important. Can you tell us about what, what brought you to writing that or led you to that NEA connection? I’d love to hear that story.

Sugely Solano: That’s a story of its own. When I came to the us I was born with a, with a name that my parents gave me. So when we [00:12:00] were setting up to do the Visa requirements and all the paperwork that it takes the, the office, I was processing my birth certificate instead of an s at the end of my name.

That was my name. Then so at that point, my name. Practically changed from Sulis, which is S-U-G-E-L-I-S, to S-U-G-E-L-I-A. So the pronunciation, the the how you write it, everything changed. And I had to get used to that name because that’s what was shown in all of my documents coming to the us.

So as I started school, I was then forced to have to explain how to. Say my name very often and I will get very nervous because I didn’t speak the language and I, I was, I felt like I was put on the spot when I heard my name incorrectly and, or they asked me to. How to say it. So [00:13:00] eventually when I became a US citizen, I decided to go back to the name that I had when I was born, and that’s how it became S-U-G-E-L-Y Suhel, without the S and without the A.

But I wanted it to sound the same way. I was used to when I was little. In my article, in my website, I wrote an article sharing that experience, and I wrote in there that every name has a story and that’s the story of my name. But I also wanted to help. Educators understand that because every name has a story and students are learning English when they are multilingual learners, they do get nervous and it can become uncomfortable when you have to explain your pronunciation over and over again.

So I wrote the article to provide tips on how to address that before you meet the student. So when the NEA was researching that idea of the importance [00:14:00] of pronouncing a student name correctly, they were researching and they found my article. So the the author reached out to me and when he called me, he said he wanted to specifically speak to me because he had spoken to many other people in the US and everyone was saying the same thing.

Just ask the student when they, when you meet them, just wait for the first day of class and, and they will explain to you how to say it. My take was to figure it out before you meet the student, to show respect and to appreciate and make them feel comfortable because students feel uncomfortable when they are, when they have to stand up or, or say, or explain it over and over.

Every time you switch a class, 

Mandi Morris: yeah, absolutely. You’ve got, seven different teachers throughout the day and every time you’re in a class, you’re with different peers. So it’s a new opportunity to feel uncomfortable, embarrassed put on a stage in a very uncomfortable way. I.

Sugely Solano: Yes. [00:15:00] So I came up with different tips and, and tricks for teachers to to learn the names before they meet the student. I would say write it out phonetically on a post-it note and or write it down in your, your roster so that you will remember it over and over again. I also say contact the family ahead of time if you know you’re gonna have a student that has a unique name.

I also suggested to ask another student that may, that speak the language. Before you meet the other student, if you know of someone that speaks that language, and it doesn’t have to be a student, sometimes it could be a custodian, it could be another teacher, anyone that would understand how to say that particular name or we now have.

Websites dedicated to pronouncing a student’s name, so you could actually type it in and then hear the pronunciation through, through an app too. And those were some ways that the teachers could make students feel comfortable or [00:16:00] not make them feel uncomfortable when we’re asking them.

Mandi Morris: I love that. So a lot of different resources and of course now more than ever to be able to look up, essentially figure that information out ahead of time to build the relationship, build the rapport with students. I love that. That’s so wonderful. And it’s really special. It’s rooted in such a personal experience for you.

And I think just some really great practical information for teachers in building that relationship with students. I’d love to switch gears a little bit so Hailey, you did a presentation at WIDA and I would love to hear you talk about what was your presentation about and what got you excited about doing that?

Sugely Solano: So my presentation was part of my, the research that I did through my doctoral degree about. The idea of using guidance and data to inform the instruction of multilingual learners. At the WIDA conference, I explored how I used a survey, a teacher survey and research findings to [00:17:00] inform the development of a specific tier one instruction.

How I implemented instructional supports and guidance to improve tier one instruction and how access to an English language proficiency toolkit will give teachers the better ways on having conversations with students about their proficiency levels, which can ultimately motivate them to learn and want to do better on the test.

Mandi Morris: Wow. That’s so interesting. I feel like there are two different things that I wanna talk about. I have follow up questions for the tier one piece. And then I also wanna learn more about your ELP toolkit. But let’s start with tier one. There’s so much that we could talk about with MLS and the tier one space.

But when you were thinking about your research and doing your research, what did that look like? What were you sharing with teachers specifically about MLS in the tier one space?

Sugely Solano: In my research I shared I, when I did the survey, I found [00:18:00] ways of how teachers felt about, different models of teaching, like co-teaching, pushing. I kind of got an idea as to how often or whether or not that was happening across the elementary schools that I was focusing my research on.

I researched best practices about how to best co-teach, and then I revised and developed guidance. To, influence that tier one instruction. For example I created , a master scheduling guide for administrators that gave them an idea of how to schedule EL students to allow EL teachers and content teachers.

To co-teach and to maximize the time that we have in the school. So in our state we have one EL teacher per building, sometimes half of a teacher per building. So I, my master’s schedule guidance. Kinds of shows administrators how to stagger the [00:19:00] instructional schedule for the EL teacher to be able to loop from one grade level to the other.

So for example, in kindergarten if we start ELA at nine o’clock, then start second grade at 9 45, and then that would allow the EL teacher to go from kindergarten to second and then to. The other grade levels. And that was one way to maximize the resources where instead of scheduling grade levels to meet at the same time or have ELA instruction at the same time that’s allowing teachers to go to different grade levels.

Mandi Morris: I love that. And we’ve talked here on the podcast before about the complexities of scheduling at the secondary level. So secondary scheduling is right. It’s. Totally. It’s its own beast. And that presents its own complications for scheduling best for mls. But I really love something that you’re touching on here that we hear about all the time [00:20:00] schools who have one ELD specialist or ML specialist, or even 0.5 FTE for the entire building.

And if you have, two first grades and two second grades and th so on and so forth, and you have one person, how do you stretch? The ability for teachers to be able to push in.

Sugely Solano: So in my guidance, I created that guidance to also show administrators how to schedule students, how to cluster students. So the cluster guidance says that students should be placed. In one grade level depending on the number of students we had in a particular school, in a school where we only had one teacher, then all kindergartners will be in, in that kindergarten class, and that will maximize the time that the EL teacher will spend with those students when they are all in the one class.

If the number of students in kindergarten was. Too high. [00:21:00] Well then we would strategically split the students based on their proficiency levels. But then we would also schedule the teacher to be able to go to kindergarten. To the one kindergarten teacher at one time, and then the other kindergarten teacher at the other time.

It, it all has to be purposely done. So part of my guidance and also shows how I provide a list of the students by proficiency level, by grade level and with the collaboration of the EL teacher every school year, we come up on how to schedule those students to.

Mandi Morris: I love how strategic that is, and it’s really thoughtful. I think sometimes about, that expression like you, I. You get out of something as much as you put into it. And what you’re describing is putting a lot of thought and a lot of intention into scheduling out a program to support your students, but really also to support your ML teachers because we know that when you are [00:22:00] the only person in a building, the amount of.

Pressure that you feel as the only language specialist in a building can be really overwhelming and being strategic about that scheduling. It also supports the ML teacher in this space.

Sugely Solano: It does because it also reduces the number of teachers you have to collaborate with. And it’s not that you’re not collaborating with everyone else, but when you have to plan or have discussions about student progress, if you reduce the number of teachers for that EL teacher, it does become more purposeful.

It’s all about being. Purposeful and intentional. Because when we don’t do that, then we tend to not give enough resources to those ELs.

Mandi Morris: You said in your survey that you asked teachers about how they felt about different types of instruction. So I’m I’m thinking here and tell me if I’m, headed in the right direction where you asked. Asking teachers, surveying them about push-in versus pullout [00:23:00] versus co-teaching versus standalone.

Tell us a little bit about what were your questions like? And I am so curious to hear what the results were.

Sugely Solano: In the survey I wanted to, find out whether or not we were actually co-teaching pushing in, and what percentage of teachers were doing this in each of the buildings? So the content teachers reported and on their own and el teachers reported. What I noticed was that the EL teachers were reporting that they were all co-teaching.

Most of them were co-teaching, but content teachers were not reporting as the high of a number. So then that brought up conversations and then to make sure that we all understood what co-teaching looked like. Not just the EL teacher because they thought they were already doing it, but in some cases, the content teacher might have thought co-teaching looked a little different.

So my, one of my guidance documents defined what co-teaching was, [00:24:00] and it kind of, it also gave scenarios of what it should look like. Based on the block that the EL teacher will be serving,

Mandi Morris: So what did the grade level or content teacher, what did they think was happening? They weren’t reporting that it was co-teaching. What were they reporting?

Sugely Solano: they were reporting push in more than co-teaching.

Mandi Morris: Oh, that’s really interesting. And how did you for the people listening today that is such an interesting takeaway from that survey. How did you then define the difference between what the ML teachers saw as co-teaching and the core content or grade level teachers saw as pushin? How do you define that differently for your staff?

Sugely Solano: So pushing is when you walk in and you are assisting you’re not using most likely you’re not using the grade level curriculum that the content teacher is using. In the other hand, co-teaching, you’re actually using the same. [00:25:00] ELA curriculum that the content teacher is using as an EL teaching by providing scaffolds and strategies, using strategies to give EL students access.

One of the things I did through my dissertation is I I always make sure that any PD that is offered for. Elementary teachers in ELA about a, a new curriculum or the curriculum that we’re using, I also have the EL teachers attend because they should be able to have those discussions and that cuts back on the amount of planning that has to happen for you to do, be able to co-teach with multiple co-teachers.

Mandi Morris: Wow. I What and what interesting findings to that survey. I just have to know, did you have a hypothesis about what you were going to find in your survey and or was this a big surprise to you, what your results turned out to be?

Sugely Solano: It was a surprise. I, I knew the EL teachers felt they were [00:26:00] co-teaching but one or two was still not a hundred percent confident about what it. Entailed. But it was surprising to see the content teachers felt that we were not although we were often saying we were co-teaching, we’re co-teaching, we’re co-teachers they did not feel that way until they learned about it.

So, for the post survey when I administer the survey again, a lot more content. Teachers reported co-teaching being the model. Then, so the professional learning and the resources that were shared helped kind of define what that looked like in for the teachers.

Mandi Morris: Wow, that is just so interesting. I’m wondering, so your part of your research was the survey and then, that brought you to the master schedule. When you won an A award at your school for the research. What specific part, I’m wondering if you could just lean into that a little bit.

What specific part did you win that recognition for?

Sugely Solano: I worked on a [00:27:00] literature synthesis which basically defined evidence-based practices for ELs. And that included what instructional practices looked like, defining co-teaching, what pushing looked like what language and reading instruction ideally looks like. Based on the research how to use multilingual learner assets to build under strengths and not focus on those weaknesses.

And one of the big pieces was the factors that influence second language acquisition where one of my artifacts was about how we as educators should consider the, the different language. Characteristics that exist when you talk about Bengali versus English or Arabic versus English and Spanish versus English.

To to kind of give an idea to educators that when we are teaching newcomers there are sounds, there are characters, there are. Certain [00:28:00] things that we have to kind of consider and keep in mind because their language, they’re coming from a language that may be very similar or different than the English language, which is the target language.

Mandi Morris: Talking about your WIDA presentation did this work inform the English language proficiency toolkit that you mentioned earlier? Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Sugely Solano: That presentation or that piece came from an artifact , from the side of the research of the multilingual learner asset. Where in using their native language, in using their proficiency in English as well, to have conversations and to celebrate their language development as a journey.

So the WIDA presentation, I shared the, an English language proficiency toolkit which basically has contains a discussion form that. Every year I generate from using the wida scores that, that are sent to us after we [00:29:00] do the testing in that in that form there, there are the proficiency levels from last year and the proficiency levels from this year so that teachers can have conversations about where students wear and where they are now.

But as they state, we use English language proficiency targets. Which is basically every individual student has their own language target to reach on an annual basis. So in that discussion form. I also have a session that basically provides last year’s target, this year’s target, and the percentage of growth that the students show.

And then teachers use this form to have conversations with students right before the access test or write up once the. Test results arrive to us to make students aware of their progress so that they can be more interested about doing, [00:30:00] trying their best during the test.

Mandi Morris: So when you set those target goals or language goals, are those coming from, did you develop a protocol within your school district? Are teachers pulling their data from WIDA access scores and then identifying target or language goals from there? What does that process look like for you?

Sugely Solano: In the state of Delaware the state of Delaware sets those targets for every student. So, for example, the first year a student takes the annual access for ELs test. Depending on how they score on that year, they have up to seven years to reach a proficiency. Now that scale score from the first time is then divided into those seven years, and then that becomes the target that those, that becomes the interim goal for that student every school year.

And there’s a complicated calculation behind it that I wouldn’t know how to explain. But basically [00:31:00] every year the state then refreshes targets. There are formulas to calculate where students are. So we then generate a percentage and then we use that information through a mail merge that I do in the word form to then have those generate the forms for every student I provided to the teachers.

And then they have those conversations with every, every year with the student.

Mandi Morris: Yeah. I love, again, a lot of intentionality on your part about creating space for those conversations, helping. Both teachers and students understand those goals. That’s something I love about the work that we get to do here at Flashlight Learning. A lot of our work is about it’s productive language, but it’s really setting goals and feedback for students.

It’s so powerful and in a more micro. Grow way where it can inform instruction, it can inform how am I supporting the student with the right scaffolds, how am I leaning into their specific needs? What you’re talking about is more of that macro view, [00:32:00] right? Like you, you have seven years to meet the proficiency scale that’s been set by the state.

And I think that both of those, goal setting, setting targets and expectations are important on both the macro level and the micro level even, down to a specific. Skill that students need to work on in the classroom. It’s just really, it’s really interesting work. It’s super exciting.

I wonder how, in your WIDA presentation, what do you feel like teachers walked away with? If you could tell teachers listening today to the podcast this is the thing that we talked about in the Rita presentation that people got excited about, or people felt like they were walking away with something valuable.

What would be that thing?

Sugely Solano: I think teachers realize that access testing is not a one. Time thing. It’s not a one day thing. It is an event that we have to revisit and celebrate and continuously have those discussions with students. The goal setting form provides. A way [00:33:00] to do, to have those conversations. But in my toolkit, I also include how we should celebrate ideas to celebrate when students make progress.

I include a a certificate that’s given to students that make progress every year from their interim year. And there’s another certificate, and this year I am adding an actual a medal where students will be celebrated with a medal when they reach their ultimate goal of exiting. From, from services by obtaining a 4.7 as an overall.

So I think teachers realized that it’s more than just, let’s do the test, let’s get it done. We have to get students vested and interested in the test for them to give their all and for them to try their best during the test. Because the, when I first started doing this, the first year. I remember going into one of the schools because the EL teacher was out on [00:34:00] leave, and I got to have the conversations with those students using their forms.

And later on, weeks later, when I will come back to the school for visits, students were coming up to me saying, Hey Miss, did you get my scores yet? How did I do? And then that kind of. Affirmed that students want to know. And if we have those conversations, they’re gonna show that they care more and they’re interested in learning more about their own progress in language.

Mandi Morris: So this kind of brings me back to the beginning of our conversation. It’s striking to me now hearing you what you’re saying now that. The adults in the room when you were in high school, they didn’t loop you into the conversation. They didn’t ask your opinion about where do you see yourself after high school?

Do you see yourself going to college? Do you see yourself wanting to pursue X, Y, or Z? They were [00:35:00] making assumptions about what your future was going to look like, and what I’m hearing from you now is. Looping students into the conversation about them owning their data, them understanding that their data is a powerful piece of them making progress.

And yes, exiting is the ultimate thing at the end of, where you wanna get with a state language assessment, but there’s progress along the way and celebrating that progress and really. Instead of us being the holder of the all the information and all of the data, it’s bringing students into the conversation so they can also feel empowered by their progress.

Sugely Solano: Absolutely. And this is an idea that I’m, that I feel we should all expand into map data, smarter, balance data all assessment data that exists. Students should be a part of because they’re the ones having to do these tests, and so they should be part of the conversations in learning their growth.

And if we wanna use the, the data [00:36:00] to drive and inform the instruction of students, then they should be a part of it so that we’re getting the most out of the data to correctly inform the instruction that we’re trying to, to ultimate get to.

Mandi Morris: So 17 years in. What is advice that you would give to somebody else in your shoes? If you’re thinking back and there’s a new teacher out of college or a new teacher, took an alternate path to, to become a teacher, an education leader in life at any point, but 17 years in, what have you learned that you would share with someone else?

Sugely Solano: I learned not to give up and to never stop learning. Because even today, I, I, I’m still eager to learn. I am now part of the EDS report, ed reports review committee for the first multilingual learner cohort. And I’m learning so much in that that it’s, it’s just I grow and connect all of those ideas and that’s how I’ve become a stronger professional in my [00:37:00] view.

And. Everyone has something different to offer, so learning from each other is the best thing.

Mandi Morris: I love that learning from one another. I, that resonates with me so much. Even now, I work on a team in our curriculum and instruction department and I, we’ll often use the analogy that we sharpen one another and it’s just, I. It’s the most incredible space. If anyone is lucky enough to work on a team where you feel like you’re continuously improving one another and continuously sharpening one another that is a really lucky space to be in professionally.

That resonates me with me a lot and I think back over my years from my very first year in the classroom, I had no idea. What I was doing and I, there was a mentor teacher who was like in her 30th year of teaching who just took me under her wing. I was 20 years old and I started teaching my first year and she just saved me, man.

She like made me feel like, okay, I can do it. I can finish this year and like those first three. [00:38:00] Three years at least, are just like one year at a time because they’re hard. I would love to hear you talk about a paradigm shift that you’ve had over the years. Either, for yourself professionally or something with instruction.

What’s a paradigm shift that you’ve experienced over the years?

Sugely Solano: I think I have grown as a person, not just as a professional. It doesn’t feel like work when I show up to, to work because I enjoy everything that I’m doing and advocating and for multilingual learners. I think after my doctoral degree, I felt. Like my, all of my ideas came together.

That research was intense. It is an experience that many people will often question themselves when they’re in it. I did at times.

Mandi Morris: can imagine the hours, I’m sure very many late nights.

Sugely Solano: Yes. My basement became my household for a [00:39:00] very long period of time, but at the end it was very well worth it because I can now express my ideas and make those connections much better after I’m spending so much time learning and , researching so much.

Mandi Morris: That’s really neat.

Okay, let’s do another question here. I’m curious, just thinking about this school year, so let’s get like really tight. We’ve been talking about going back and thinking from 17 years ago and but getting really tight to this school year. What’s a win that you’ve had this school year for in your school district?

Sugely Solano: I actually had to answer this for a an icebreaker activity the other day. And I’m, I am gonna say taking on two additional responsibilities programs just. The fact that I’ve made it this far, so far and I’ve been able to build so many relationships with new teachers inward languages and new teachers in the immersion programming.[00:40:00] 

I am, I. I think I’m succeeding in applying all of that guidance that I was able to create for my English learning programming. I’ve been able to adapt it and apply it to the two new programs that I have and it looks like teachers are appreciating it. Like the toolkit for example, I was able to now adapt it for the STEM testing data that immersion students do at the end of the school year to measure their Spanish proficiency using the STEM test.

So all of these ideas can be implemented depending on in other areas, and I’ve been able to, to maximize what I’ve learned and have done. In these two new positions or two new areas that I’m overseeing. And that’s exciting.

Mandi Morris: That’s really cool. So it sounds like your school district had things broken up and then got a little bit more cohesive in bringing all of those departments [00:41:00] together. Am I understanding that correctly?

Sugely Solano: Yes.

Mandi Morris: And it sounds like it’s been a real positive experience for you. Sometimes when we, we hear from ML directors, especially in medium and smaller size school districts, where it’s one person’s doing 20 things because they just don’t, they don’t have the capacity to hire more people to do it all.

But you have such a positive outlook. And it sounds to me like instead of being like, oh my gosh I had to take on more roles and responsibilities you’re really seeing the win from that. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Sugely Solano: I think it’s because the research and all of the work and all of what I’ve been able to create and develop to pretty much I’ve, I’ve created a, a program in for ELs, K through 12. All of those ideas have folded into being able to do the same for. Immersion programming and when it comes to professional learning, when it comes to the guidance that I’m [00:42:00] created it all looks the same, but it’s all purposeful and, and all.

Targeting the areas of needs for those two areas. So, although in the beginning it felt, is it possible, would I be able to tackle these many areas I do feel today? And I said that the other day that it, it makes sense that, what I know it’s gonna benefit to more programs that, and I mean, I’m, it’s not just me.

I have other people that I work with and, and teams that are also excited about it, 

Mandi Morris: it sounds like an important piece though, in that puzzle is that you had that foundational experience and the foundational knowledge, the research from. That you had done for your PhD program that helped to really set a foundation to set you up for success. really that’s not so unlike our English learners.

When we think about them in a content class, getting thrown into a lesson about, fill in the blank. And if they have no opportunity to build that background knowledge [00:43:00] to build the vocabulary they need to build some of that, what skills do I need in order to be able to. Actually have a compare contrast conversation or to be able to build out an argument for an essay in my ELA class.

They feel that success when they’ve had the opportunity to build those skills and build the background knowledge that they need. Just like you’re having so much success in and taking on these new roles and finding all of the benefit of. Having that cohesion in those departments.

It’s really, it’s an interesting perspective. Okay. I’m gonna ask you a couple of lightning round questions. So if you could give one piece of advice to an ML teacher or an ELD specialist, what would that advice be?

Sugely Solano: To use data and student proficiency and assessment data to make decisions because it targets students and it meets students where they are rather than guessing where they are.

Mandi Morris: [00:44:00] That’s really good informed instruction, right? Having that data to inform instruction. So good. If there was one practice that you could name that you would like to see implemented more frequently, what would that practice be?

Sugely Solano: That will mirror the, previous answer were more data discussions during PLC the EL teachers and content teachers being part of that discussion using benchmark data, seeing students where they are, what are the majority of the students, what are the needs, what are the strengths to drive their instruction more frequently.

I know some people do it maybe once a year, but it should be done more frequently.

Mandi Morris: I love you mentioned PLCs and that is such a natural space for ML educators to come together with grade level or content teachers to be engaged in the data together and instruction together. I love that. Just wanna highlight [00:45:00] that. Such a great note there. Is there a particular author or speaker who is important to you or has been influencing the way that you think about the work that you do?

Sugely Solano: Goldenberg through my research, I learned a lot of the what reading instruction. Looks like and science or reading for mls looks like through that research they were highly cited in my research and I really enjoyed reading and learning from them.

Mandi Morris: Goldenberg has an article that is really old now, but a colleague of mine was just recently asking about some, wanting to fill some gaps in knowledge and go a little bit deeper with some ML stuff. And I was like, I still. I love this article by Goldenberg. It’s old from like 2008. I wish he would write the same article now in 2025, but I agree, I’ve read some really pertinent helpful material from him over the years as well.

Sugely Solano: It’s amazing how, even though it’s very old, it’s still relevant [00:46:00] now and that’s always interesting.

Mandi Morris: It is very interesting. Dr. Suha, this has been such a wonderful opportunity to talk with you today. I’m excited about the work that you’re doing in your school district for your teachers. It’s so intentional. There’s so much thought and strategy put into the work that you’re doing.

And I just, I’m so thankful that you had time to talk with us today. Thank you so much for joining us.