Katy Knapp Ozarks Technical Community College, Springfield MO Intro The goal of this project was to allow multilingual learners the opportunity to check out books that represent diverse cultures and languages. The target audience was high school students. High School juniors and seniors attend Ozarks Technical Community College as part of the High School Programs department. The books were in student's home languages of Spanish, Arabic, French and Swahili. This informati

Nicki Foltz Boyd Elementary Springfield, MO Intro The Bridges, Not Barriers: Engaging Multilingual Families Through Inclusive School Events project aims to increase multilingual family engagement by identifying and removing barriers and designing inclusive school events that are accessible to English-language (EL) families. Family engagement is a key factor in supporting the academic success and development of multilingual learners (Ansari & Pianta, 2023; Jeon et al., 2026; M

Jessica Sangale, Neosho Middle School, Neosho Intro Family engagement is very important to supporting English learners’ (ELs) literacy (Beuch, 2022). Altamimi and Ogdol (2023) found that when students read with families, it improved their comprehension. When schools include students’ cultures and family traditions in activities, families feel more welcome and are more likely to take part (Breiseth et al., 2015). Even if parents are not fluent in English, when they have the