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2023 Multilingual Leadership Institute: Centering Language, Culture, & Art
July 22 - 30, 2023
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Inquiries:
For inquiries, please email us
call us at (312) 315-0727
Event Description
Steep yourself in the rich culture, fascinating artistic traditions, vibrant history, and linguistic variety found in one of the most beautiful places in the Americas. The city of Oaxaca and its surroundings will serve as our living classroom for a 9-day Institute focused on language, culture, and art through a multilingual leadership perspective. As a UNESCO World Heritage site, Oaxaca will deeply affect the way you approach your multilingual students and how you view the cultural and linguistic assets that students bring to their learning. We invite you to join us for this unforgettable experience.
“Summit School District 104 participated in the Paridad Language Culture and Art Institute in the summer of 2016 and we were entirely thrilled with the experience. The Paridad staff ensured that every facet of the program ran efficiently and met all of our travel, dietary and logistical needs from start to finish. The artistic, historical, cultural and culinary experiences we were provided were unique, varied, complex and thought-provoking. Even more impactful however were the professional and personal transformations that our participants underwent. As educators of linguistically and culturally diverse students, this trip provided a window into the reality of our students and the communities from which they prevail. In turn, it provided each of us with a mirror to examine our own cultural interpretations, biases and privileges. Every last one of our participants was changed as a result of our experience in Oaxaca in both professional and personal ways. Summit looks forward to a continued collaboration with Paridad as a result of our participation in the Oaxaca Language, Culture and Art Institute 2016.”—J. Baricovich, Director of Assessment and English Learner Programming, Cook County School District 104, Illinois
Institute Itinerary
Institute Staff
President & Co-Founder, Paridad Education Consulting
John has devoted his professional career to bringing parity to the field of education, hence the origin of the name Paridad. Throughout his 25 years in education, he has played a variety of roles from award-winning bilingual teacher, to university instructor, to nationally recognized professional developer. More importantly, John brings his deep expertise, enthusiam, and love of all things Oaxaca to our institute.
Co-Founder & Lead Developer, WIDA
Margo is an internationally
recognized expert and author in the assessment of language learners. She is also the Lead Developer, for the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium.
Cristina Sánchez-López
Senior Associate
Cristina deeply enjoys collaborating
with practitioners in developing
instruction, intervention and
assessment for multilingual learners.
In addition. She derives great
satisfaction from teaching graduate
courses for in-service teachers on biliteracy, assessment, and foundations of language minority education. She has delivered graduate courses for American educators visiting Oaxaca over the last 15 years.
Guest Presenters
Associate
Carlos has served in diverse positions from resource teacher, self-contained 5th grade teacher to Lead Technology instructor coaching teachers how to integrate technology into the curriculum. ​Carlos has a unique bicultural and bilingual vantage point on the culture of Mexico and the U.S. He is a dual national that has family
homes in both countries. From
this binational perspective he has
developed a strong passion for sharing the hidden marvels of culture, food, art and architecture of his own Mexican roots. As
an Illinois educator, he has focused on the development of Dual Language programming
at his own district.
What Previous Attendees Are Saying
"I have had the pleasure to go on several cultural excursions to Oaxaca with John Hilliard. His expertise and knowledge of the language, culture, and art of this beautiful part of the world is extremely impressive. These experiences widened my appreciation of my clients back in Chicago and helped me connect with them more effectively."
Jonathan Tabor, Attorney - Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago

Carmen Ayala
Special Guest Presenter
Carmen has 40 years’ experience as a teacher, administrator, author and most recently Illinois’ State Superintendent of Education. Her areas of expertise include deep curriculum alignment English Learners and leadership. Her professional passions are equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. She works with schools and
districts using an inclusive and systemic approach where all educators and students can thrive andmeet high levels of fulfillment and performance.
Previous Institute Photos
![]() Oaxacan street art mural | ![]() Attendees with Barbara Marler | ![]() Cactus in Oaxaca |
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![]() Oaxacan street mural | ![]() Attendees display of alebrijes | ![]() Cactus in Oaxaca |
![]() Mural of woman in jewel tones | ![]() Zocalo | ![]() Agave in Oaxaca |
![]() Oaxacan street art La Virgen | ![]() Oaxacan textile artisian | ![]() Miss you Lapiztola mural |
![]() Outdoor class | ![]() Monte Alban | ![]() Oaxacan street art sketched woman |
![]() Black Pottery |