CUNY-IIE hosted a webinar to discuss the urgent need to improve teacher and leader preparation for educating and supporting immigrant-origin students in New York State. This webinar delved into the gaps in current educator programs regarding immigration issues and the importance of culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices. The expert panel also shared potential solutions and strategies, including reimagining education courses to better prepare pre-service educators and professional development mandates for in-service educators to be better equipped to serve immigrant-origin students.
This webinar featured a panel of experts, including educators, education officials, and school administrators.
The panel included:
Moderator:
Rachel Duff, Project Researcher, CUNY-IIE
Panelists:
Italo Baldassarre, Principal, Lasalle Preparatory School, Niagara Falls, NY
Ashley Busone-Rodriguez, Bilingual Third Grade Teacher, NYC
Cecilia Espinosa, Chair, Department of Early Childhood/Childhood, Lehman College, CUNY
William Murphy, Deputy Commissioner for Higher Education, NYS Education Department
SPEAKER BIOS:
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Italo J. Baldassarre is the Principal of LaSalle Preparatory School in the City School District of Niagara Falls, New York. With 33 years of experience in education, he has served as a teacher, dean, and principal at multiple levels, consistently focusing on enriching the educational experience for all students. His leadership emphasizes trauma-informed practices, the effective implementation of instructional models for diverse learners, and strong collaboration with families. His family's own immigrant experience has instilled a deep commitment to supporting all students, particularly those new to the community.
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Ashley Busone Rodríguez is a third-grade teacher in an integrated co-teaching classroom at Dos Puentes Elementary School, a dual language school in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. She holds an M.A. in Bilingual Education from The City College of New York. Prior to teaching third grade, Ashley taught English for Speakers of Other Languages for adults and teenagers in Harlem, Boston, Santiago de Chile, and Morogoro, Tanzania. Ashley has co-authored articles and curricula related to translanguaging, immigration, popular education and indigenous language education.
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Cecilia M. Espinosa, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Early Childhood/Childhood Education (ECCE) at Lehman College, CUNY. She received her PhD from Arizona State University. An immigrant from Ecuador, South America, she started her journey in education as a teacher assistant, working her way up to director of a dual language program in Phoenix, Arizona. Cecilia’s research focuses on collaborative research, bilingual children’s writing, translanguaging, descriptive processes, and children’s literature that affirms and nurtures children’s multiple identities. Cecilia served as chair of the Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature in Fiction (National Council of Teachers of English). She is an affiliated faculty of the New York City Writing Project (NYCWP) and a member of the Descriptive Inquiry Philosophy Study Group. Cecilia was an associate investigator of the CUNY New York State Initiative Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY NYSIEB) and in that role for the Initiative on Immigration and Education (CUNY IIE). Cecilia co-led the NY State Education Department Project on Best Practices for Multilingual Learners and the Next Generation Learning Standards (NGLS). She is co-author of the book Rooted in Strength: Using Translanguaging to Grow Multilingual Readers and Writers (Scholastic, 2021).
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William Murphy is Deputy Commissioner for Higher Education at the NYS Education Department, oversees the Office of College and University Evaluation (OCUE), and offices that coordinate teacher certification; personnel review and accountability for teachers and school leaders; and postsecondary opportunity, access and early college HS programs. Before his appointment as Deputy Commissioner, Dr. Murphy served in various leadership roles at NYSED, including Director of Professional Education where he led teams responsible for evaluating higher education programs for professional licensure at public and private colleges and universities in New York State and internationally. He holds a Ph.D. from the University at Albany, a Master of Science in Education (M.S. Ed.) from Baruch College, and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from Le Moyne College.
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Rachel Duff is an educator, organizer, and current PhD student in Urban Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is from the Deep South and Puerto Rico, two integral parts of her positionality. She is a former educator of English for emergent multilingual students and has worked in education policy and research in both Washington, DC and Jacksonville, FL. Her research interests include understanding how early career educators develop critical consciousness and subsequently how critically conscious teachers impact student belonging and family engagement for newcomer and/or undocumented youth. Rachel obtained her bachelor’s in English Education at the University of North Florida and master’s in Educational Transformation at Georgetown University.
