English Learner Education

CES ELL consulting services meet the needs of educators and others working with English Learners, World and foreign language learners, and students who struggle to learn.

We work with public, public-charter, vocational, and private schools and organizations in urban and rural settings, both in Massachusetts and nationally, to support and respond to their needs.

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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.

Group of students sitting outside looking at a book and talking

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.

Thank you for being such a compassionate and deeply knowledgeable teacher. The course and your approach to the art of teaching have given me so much to grow with.

— SEI Course Participant 

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, in Columbus, OH; and Culturally Responsive Practice in Using Federal Grant Resourceat the Nov. 2022 the Massachusetts department of education Federal Grant Programs conference. He presented on Teaching students in poverty at the 2019 ASCD Conference on Educational Leadership.

You can also hear Albert in two podcasts, In Search of Meaning (This PhD Thinks, 2022) and Reflections on Effective IEPs (Phenomenal Spotlight W/Mr. Short: Albert Johnson-Mussad, 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

Audrey Morse

Audrey Morse is a Curriculum and Instruction Specialist at the Collaborative for Educational Services, taught the 2018 and 2019 MA DESE Institute course Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty in partnership with Lesley University. She has worked extensively with youth and families living with economic disadvantage in her decades long career in ESL, literacy, speech-language pathology, and human services. Audrey brings a deep understanding of the challenges students and families face, extensive knowledge of evidence-based approaches, and her passion for improving the social, emotional and academic outcomes of students in underserved populations.

Position: Curriculum and Instruction Specialist

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