This conference is for: program directors and administrators of community-based heritage language schools; members of the language communities involved in these schools; and directors and leaders in public, private, and charter schools who are interested in working with community-based heritage language schools.

The goals of the conference are to:

• Build partnerships among and across community-based heritage language schools and determine arenas for future action
• Help schools create, strengthen, and build their school structures and activities
• Clarify the importance of community-based heritage language schools in the United States and in the lives of language communities in this country
• Develop information about community-based heritage language schools through a national survey of schools
• Share and make available resources that will be helpful to schools

Before attending the conference, please prepare by doing the following:

1. Watch videos from the six panelists (for the session on October 9 at 1:00 to 2:00 p.m.) and videos from the two speakers (for the session on October 10 at 9:30-10:00 a.m.), where they describe how their organization and their work are connected with and committed to community-based heritage language schools, the resources they have that are helpful for those of us working in those schools, and what we can learn from them. All videos are posted in this YouTube playlist.

2. Then please submit your questions for the panelists and the speakers (either to a specific panelist or speaker or a more general question), using this Google Form by October 1. We will send the questions to the panelists and speakers before their sessions and they will answer them there.

For more details about the conference schedule, please visit the conference website.

The 2020 Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference Online is hosted as a collaboration between the American University Institute for Innovation in Education (IIE) and the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools.

We are grateful to our conference sponsors:

• ACTFL
• Avant Assessment
• Kazickas Family Foundation
• National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC)

And to our conference partners:

• Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)
• Global Seal of Biliteracy
• Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL-NCLIS)
• National Foreign Language Center (NFLC)
• Seal of Biliteracy

Please email iie@american.edu with questions.