Supporting Multilingual Learners
Our Approach
We use a whole-child, whole-school, and whole-community approach to create a better learning experience for both students and professionals.
In addition, schools experiencing dynamic shifts in their populations of multilingual learners may have learners from rich prior literacy and schooling experiences along with other learners that have not had the same type of prior schooling or have had significant interruptions to their education. Still other learners may have experienced significant trauma and violence from civil war, natural disasters, and other life impacting experiences. Programs that effectively address the need to engage these students where they are can increase student success and reduce the dropout rate for schools and districts.
Experience
Our expert consultants have many years of experience in the classroom evaluating ELLs as well as all types of learners and their instructional programming, and conducting teacher trainings and graduate courses.
Services
Customized Professional Development
We offer a range of tailored on-site or open-enrollment professional development, team and individualized coaching, and technical assistance related to English Learner program design, development and implementation, instructional strategies and curriculum assessment and design.
Curriculum Development and Delivery
We partner with educators, school and district teams to resolve problems of practice and support school leaders, teachers and other educators to strengthen learners’ academic and social-emotional wellbeing. In our work, we think about curriculum and instruction services and practices within the larger context of social justice, equity and trauma-engaged practice, and to support schools in responding to learners’ and families’ lived experience.
SEI (Sheltered English Immersion) Center
CES is an approved provider of SEI endorsement courses for both teachers and administrators. Currently, courses are conducted online. We can bring site-based SEI Endorsement courses directly to your teachers! We have worked with districts of varying sizes throughout the state.
Student Evaluation
We offer assitance with student evaluation, with a focus on analyzing outcomes based on effective measures of student performance.
Title III Consortium
CES manages a regional consortium of over 20 school districts, partnering to access Title III funding, to meet the educational needs of English Language Learners.
Program Design Aligned with State/National Frameworks and Regulations
Your school, particularly in rural and suburban areas, may have a small or low incidence of English learners and need help to address the regulations and the learning needs of this small population within a whole school/district context. We support developing and implementing strong policies and procedures based on scientifically-proven program models.
English Learner Education Consulting Team
Albert Johnson-Mussad Ph.D.
Dr. Johnson-Mussad serves as a staff consultant in leadership and instruction at the Collaborative for Educational Services. He travels nationally to facilitate professional development for school leaders, teachers and other licensed educators in instructional leadership; English learner education; world language and bilingual education; adolescent literacy education; improving outcomes for students in poverty; and social-emotional learning. In addition to professional development, he provides individualized leadership and instructional coaching, curriculum development and strategic planning, and educational program evaluation.
Johnson-Mussad is a seasoned K-12 teacher and curriculum leader who has worked with central office and school-based administrators to increase achievement for both striving learners [or less ready learners] and gifted and talented [more ready] learners. He has taught K-12 English learners and high school Spanish. Albert served as an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and also in the role of elementary school principal. He has been helping K-12 writers who are English learners, including EL’s with disabilities, to communicate personally compelling meaning for 30 years. He is the middle son of immigrants from Egypt, and a heritage speaker of English who also speaks Spanish and some Arabic.
Learn more about:
Dr. Johnson-Mussad is currently serving a 3-year term on Massachusetts DESE's Gifted and Talented Advisory Council.
His publications include:
- Responsive Collaboration for IEP and 504 Teams, book. Co-authored 2022, Corwin.
- Instructional Techniques including Artists in Residence, Pair Shuffle, Who goes there? in New ways in Teaching English at the Secondary Level, Deborah Short. 1999, VA: TESOL
Among his recent conference presentations are Teaching Writers Learning English or Who Have IEPs, presented at the 2023 LitCon, the largest K-8 literacy education conference in North America; Improving Outcomes for Students in Poverty, at the 2024 Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program Conference; and Listening and Reading for Nonfiction Learning: Explicit Comprehension Instruction, for Massachusetts Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages. Albert has also presented at Future FocusED, a New England conference on the future of school.
You can also hear Albert in three podcasts, In Search of Meaning (This PhD Thinks, 2022), Reflections on Effective IEPs (Phenomenal Spotlight w/Mr. Short: Albert Johnson-Mussad, 2023), and Journeys Into Being (Episode 3 with host, Renata Pienkawa, 2023).
"Albert creates a great community within his instruction where all levels of educators are welcomed and appreciated. As a result, every member of the course is engaged and contributes knowledge based on their experiences. This means that the participants come away with enormous "hands-on" strategies with ways to use them in different settings because of the discussions we have." –5th Grade ELA/SS Teacher
Position: Leadership and Instruction Continuous Improvement Specialist
Email: ajohnsonmussad@collaborative.org
Phone: (413) 200-8294
Brian Whitehouse
Brian is the creator of The Learning Spiral, a model of curriculum design that allows both the teacher and the student to create an optimal learning experience. He holds his Bachelor of Arts degree in Foreign Languages and Education from Marlboro College, and his M.Ed. in Alternative Education from Lock Haven University.
His extensive classroom experience encompasses work in foreign languages, ESL, mathematics, athletics, game design, technology, and research methods at the middle school, high school, and college levels. In addition, he works with teachers in courses in pedagogy and instruction, best practices in course design, assessments, and educational and action research methods.
