NAELPA Membership 2025

Laura Gardner

Founder & CEO

Immigrant Connections

Laura has 20 years of experience working in education, refugee resettlement, and social work. While in education, she worked as a district level manager for immigrant family and community engagement as well as a school social worker. Laura also worked for Bridging Refugee Youth and Children’s Services (BRYCS) managing their national technical assistance initiative to federal Refugee School Impact Grantees. Laura has facilitated professional development on building the capacity of teachers and school systems to engage immigrant families in their children’s education, language access, cultural competency, equity, unaccompanied immigrant children, immigrant family reunification, and refugee resettlement. Laura holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Education. Laura founded Immigrant Connections in 2017.

• 4:00 - 5:30 PM, April 22, 2025 Virtual - Zoom

  Q2 Webinar: How EL Program Leaders can Help Immigrant Students and Families During Uncertain Times

Dr. Megan Alubicki Flick

Multilingual Learner Consultant/Title III State Director

Connecticut State Department of Education

Dr. Megan Alubicki Flick is proud to serve as the 2024-2025 President of the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators (NAELPA). She has been involved in the leadership of the organization for several years and also served as NAELPA’s President for the 2020-2021 board year. Dr. Alubicki Flick works for the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) as the state’s Title III State Director and English Learner/Multilingual Learner (EL/ML) Consultant. In her role she works to advance outcomes for and develop assets-based approaches to serving ELs/MLs, which is her professional passion. During her time at the CSDE, she has overseen the federal Title III grant, the state bilingual grant, and Connecticut’s Seal of Biliteracy initiative in addition to supporting a range of other projects and initiatives related to the instruction of ELs/MLs and professional learning for teachers. Prior to joining the CSDE, she worked as an ESL teacher for Hartford Public Schools, conducted education and language policy research as a U.S. Fulbright Fellow to the European Union, and served as an EFL Teacher in Mikkeli, Finland through a fellowship with the American-Scandinavian Foundation. In 2023, Megan was honored to develop and deliver a TED Talk called “The Power of Multilingualism in Education” in which she advocates for multilingualism to be viewed as an asset in America’s schools. It can be accessed at https://www.ted.com/talks/megan_alubicki_flick_the_power_of_multilingualism_in_education.

• 12:00 - 1:30 PM, June 18, 2025 Virtual

  ATC Training Part 1: Championing ML Success: Support Strategies for Educators

Judith O’Loughlin is an educational consultant and teacher trainer. She has thirty years of teaching in public schools in the U.S. in English, English as a second language, and special education, in small population, low incidence programs. She has also worked in Japan at SOKA University, as a visiting professor, teaching graduate candidates how to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to young learners. She has trained teachers in credentialing programs in the areas of second language acquisition and learning, bilingual special education, sheltered instruction, SLFE, differentiating instruction and strategies, and curriculum development in ESL and EFL low incidence programs. She is the author of chapters in several edited publications, and the author of the Academic Language Accelerator (Oxford University Press) and co-author of Students with Interrupted Formal Education: Bridging Where They Are and What They Need (Corwin) and Supporting the Journey of English Learners after Trauma (UMich Press).

• 12:00 - 1:30 PM, June 18, 2025 Virtual

  ATC Training Part 1: Championing ML Success: Support Strategies for Educators

Dr. Bill Rivers

Principal

WP RIVERS & ASSOCIATES

Dr. Bill Rivers, principal WP Rivers & Associates, has more than 35 years’ experience in language advocacy and capacity at the national level, with significant experience in culture and language for economic development and national security, and publications in second and third language acquisition research, proficiency assessment, program evaluation, and language policy development and advocacy.

• 12:00 - 1:30 PM, June 18, 2025 Virtual

  ATC Training Part 1: Championing ML Success: Support Strategies for Educators