Project SEMBRAR:
Sustaining Equity through Mentorship for
Bilingual Teacher Recruitment and Retention
A five-year project to strengthen and expand Grow-Your-Own Teacher Pipelines for Dual Language Bilingual Educators in Northern New Mexico and New England.
Supported by a National Professional Development Grant from the Office of English Language Acquisition, Project SEMBRAR is led by a consortium consisting of Dual Language Education of New Mexico (DLeNM), and Multistate Association for Bilingual Education (MABE), with support from Educators for a Multilingual Multicultural America (EMMA)​​​
Learn more about Project SEMBRAR in the following summary documents
Project Team
Michael Rodríguez - Project Director - Dual Language Education of New Mexico - michael@dlenm.org
Phyllis Hardy - Project Coordinator (New England) - Multistate Association for Bilingual Ed - PhyllisHardy@mabene.org
Joan Lachance - Project Coordinator (New Mexico) - Educators for Multilingual Multicultural America - EMMAInfo@dlenm.org
Margaret "Meg" Burns - NDLC Faculty Coordinator - Multistate Association for Bilingual Ed - megburns@mabene.org
Marialuisa DiStefano - NDLC Faculty - University of Massachusetts, Amherst - marialuisadi@umass.edu
Laura Hammon-Ortiz - NDLC Faculty - Rhode Island University - laura.hammanortiz@uri.edu
Elena Schmidt - NDLC Faculty - Southern Connecticut State University - schmitte1@southernct.edu
Seonsook Park - NDLC Faculty - New Mexico Highlands University - parks@nmhu.edu
Elisabeth Valenzuela - NDLC Faculty - New Mexico Highlands University - evalenz@nmhu.edu
Jackie Mendez - Project Evaluator - MC2 Education LLC - jackie@mc2educationllc.com
Rachel McCormick - Project Evaluator - MC2 Education LLC - rachel@mc2educationllc.com
Yvonne Williams - EMMA Consortium Member - Wisconsin Center for Education Products & Services - yvonne.williams@wceps.org
Project Measures
Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)
Measure 1: The percentage of project-specific annual goals the program met.
Measure 2: The number of bilingual or multilingual pre-service program participants enrolled annually.
Measure 3: Under measure 2, the number of bilingual or multilingual participants who are making progress toward becoming State certified, licensed, or endorsed in EL instruction.
Measure 4: Under measure 2, the number of bilingual or multilingual participants who have become fully State certified, licensed, or endorsed annually.
Specific Project Goals
1. Teacher Recruitment. Improve DLBE teacher recruitment efforts for students from first-generation and/or low-income backgrounds in participating districts in MA, RI, CT, and NM through robust relationships to develop and strengthen pathways for DLBE certification.
2. Targeted DLBE Professional Learning. Develop and enhance state-level pathways for DLBE teacher learning through alignment with EMMA Standards.
3. Teacher Collaboration and Retention. Build local and regional capacity within participating districts to train and retain uniquely qualified DLBE teachers.