Equity is a How, Not a What: Partnering with a Shared Vision for Multilingual Student Success
Cecilia Vila Chave
NJTESOL/NJBE
Michelle Shappirio
Cecilia Vila Chave
This Annual Voices article provides an overview of the workshop the author led with her colleague at the 2025 Women’s Leadership Conference, hosted by NJPSA. Mrs. Shappirio is a Supervisor of Language Arts, Intervention, and Instructional Coaching (K-5). With a background in elementary school teaching, Mrs. Shappirio has led her departments for the past ten years at the Township of Ocean School District. Ms. Vila Chave, a former Multilingual Learner and Bilingual/Bicultural and ESL teacher, supervises all K-12 ESL Programs at the Township of Ocean School District. Ms. Vila Chave is also the Vice President for NJTESOL/NJBE, and she has been part of their Executive Board since 2021. Mrs. Shappirio’s and Ms. Vila Chave’s educational journey intersected in 2022, when Ms. Vila Chave joined the district.
In their joint presentation at the 2025 Women’s Leadership Conference, these district leaders modeled how a shared leadership approach to equity is the most effective way to meet the needs of multilingual learners. The following sections will provide a summary of their shared vision that was presented at the conference: Leadership Mindsets, District Mission, and Strategic Plan, a Roadmap to Shared Leadership, and Resources for Collaboration.
Leadership Mindsets
A traditional approach to leadership that has translated into how Multilingual Learners are educated, that is, a silo mentality:
“A silo mentality is a workplace obstacle where employees do not share knowledge with others in the same or different departments. A lack of communication or the prevalence of unhealthy competition can make it challenging for cross-functional teams to realize a unified vision, leading to a silo mentality” (MasterClass, 2022).
It is often a side effect of thinking that educating subgroup populations is predicated by a specialized certification. While policies for educating Multilingual Learners and Special Education students require a specialized certification, the general asset-based approach to educating subgroups is one benefiting all students, and it is not beholden to any one certification.
Conversely, Mrs. Shappirio and Ms. Vila Chave’s approach is committed to intersectionality. This strategy focuses on “the importance of considering power, privilege, and social structures in relation to people’s access to resources, experiences of discrimination, and interpersonal interactions.” (Sabik, 2021). This mindset requires leaders to evaluate how all student identities are interconnected, and how to best leverage that connection: Multilingual Learners, Special Education, Title I, and G&T.
District Mission and Strategic Plan
“Meet the needs of all students while maintaining a proud tradition of academic excellence” (District strategic plan, 2022). A district’s mission and strategic plan serve as the compass for administrators to guide all their leadership efforts. The concept of equity, both as part of the district’s mission and its strategic plan, is executed through all initiatives and decision making processes over the course of several years. A shared understanding amongst the leadership team around the concept of equity fosters opportunities for cross departmental collaboration and success. In this regard, the concept of equity refers less to a list of initiatives to accomplish, but rather, the manner in which all initiatives are designed. Hence, the idea that equity is a how, not a what.
A Roadmap to Shared Leadership
Mrs. Shappirio’s steadfast commitment to this mission established the opportunity for collaboration with Ms. Vila Chave. Since 2016, Mrs. Shappirio has been laying a strong foundation to meet the needs of all learners in her role as Supervisor of ELA, Intervention, and Instructional Coaching. The two initiatives that were most transformative in setting the stage for equity in educating Multilingual Learners were: Student-centered instructional coaching and the implementation of structured data cycles.
Ms. Vila Chave joined the administrative team in 2022 as a new administrator committed to advocacy for best practices and immediately gravitated toward Mrs. Shappirio. In her first year as the Supervisor of ESL Programs, Ms. Vila Chave, in partnership with Mrs. Shappirio, leveraged the existing processes to:
● Conduct a Multilingual Learner needs assessment: identification processes, compliance with Chapter 15, and instructional models in general education programs.
● Prioritize challenges and enlist support across multiple stakeholders: unlearning generalized misconceptions about MLs, and the over/under identification of MLs in Intervention, Special Education, and G&T programs.
By the following year, their strong partnership brought to the district opportunities for professional development, interdisciplinary ESL programs, and effective progress monitoring for multilingual learners. A key cornerstone of this shared leadership approach was the first-ever Multilingual Learner Academy, hosted by the district during their February 2024 in service. This achievement showcased the shared commitment to prioritizing professional development focused on multilingual learners. It was a full day of workshops, mostly led by members of the staff, on various topics: differentiation strategies, SEL for MLs, leveraging educational technology for inclusion, and serving twice exceptional students. The ultimate goal of this collaboration was to set the tone for all stakeholders that multilingual learners are an asset to the learning community and dispel the misconception that educating MLs is an insurmountable task.
The work of ensuring Multilingual Learners have access and opportunity across all areas requires a long-term commitment and shared leadership. To that end, Mrs. Shappirio and Ms. Vila Chave continue to leverage a Framework for Shared Leadership (Lambert, 2002):
● Principal and teachers, as well as many parents and students, participate together as mutual learners and leaders.
● Shared vision results in program coherence.
● Inquiry-based use of information guides, decisions, and practice.
● Roles and actions reflect broad involvement, collaboration, and collective responsibility.
● Reflective practice consistently leads to innovation.
Resources for Collaboration
Evaluating how well a team of administrators work together and aligning their priorities to ensure multilingual learners are best served can be a daunting task. To assist in facilitating this conversation at the 2025 Women’s Leadership Conference, Mrs. Shappirio and Ms. Vila Chave presented the following scenario and reflection sheet. This resource was a modified version of a co-teaching reflection form in Co-teaching for English Learners by Dove & Honigsfeld (2020).
Scenario: All students receiving ELA intervention are progress monitored in phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency.
Student progress is logged and graphed in relation to a normed goal line to determine if students are making adequate growth or progress toward a goal.
● How do we evaluate if our interventions are working for multilingual learners?
● How do we make decisions around student progress while also considering each learner’s level of language acquisition?
To view the example of the Reflection Sheet Based on a Shared Leadership Approach modeled by Mrs. Shappirio and Ms. Vila Chave, click here
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Additional resources for collaboration:
● A Framework for Shared Leadership
● NJPSA Guidance for Intervention, Evaluation, and Delivery of Special Education Services for Multilingual learners
● Multitiered System of Support for English Learners
● Reading & Writing with English Learners
Educating multilingual learners is as much a work of effective pedagogical strategies as it is advocacy. A shared leadership approach founded on a common mission paves the way for initiatives that are equitable and long lasting. By engaging in an intersectional approach to leadership, administrators will not be required to add more to their already full plates, but rather, lean on each other’s strengths to lead for equity.
Reference List
Dove, M. G., & Honigsfeld, A. (2020). Co-teaching for English learners: Evidence-based practices and research-informed outcomes. Information Age Publishing, Inc.
District strategic plan. Township of Ocean School District. (2022). https://www.oceanschools.org/our-district/district-strategic-plan
Lambert, L. (2002, May 1). A framework for shared leadership. ASCD. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/a-framework-for-shared-leadership
Sabik, N. J. (2021, December 2). The intersectionality toolbox: A resource for teaching and applying an intersectional lens in public health. Frontiers in public health. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34926389/
Silo mentality: How to overcome workplace silos – 2026. MasterClass. (2022, June 6). https://www.masterclass.com/articles/silo-mentality
Cecilia Vila is a Multilingual Educator currently serving as the Vice President of NJTESOL-NJBE. In addition to volunteering for the organization, Cecilia is a Supervisor of ESL Programs and Social Studies in the Township of Ocean School District, NJ. With a decade of experience in the field of Second Language Acquisition, Cecilia is committed to fostering collaboration amongst stakeholders to ensure all students can reach their potential.
