The meeting focused on heritage language education, discussing strategies for engaging parents and students in language learning.

Shuhan Wang discussed the complexities of the language ecosystem in the United States, emphasizing the need for multilingualism and multiliteracy. She used the Chinese language field as an example and highlighted the challenges faced by the field, including political tensions, confusion over educational priorities, and socio-cultural movements.

Montserrat Garibay, Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director for the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) at the U.S. Department of Education discussed the importance of heritage language education in light of OELA's “Raise the Bar” call to action. Additionally, representatives from three heritage language schools provided a brief overview of what their schools were engaged in and accomplishing.

Richard Brecht led a dynamic consideration of new immigration patterns and how community-based schools are responding and building and sustaining their programs, and community-based school leaders talked about the challenges and successes they are experiencing and their next steps in building their schools.

Agnès Tounkara and Arturo Díaz led a a discussion on how community-based schools can integrate AI technology in the heritage language classroom.

Renate Ludanyi (President, German Language School Conference, German School of Connecticut) and Sigrid Belluz (VP, German Language School Conference, Deutsche Schule Charlotte, NC) discussed the importance of purposeful and efficient communication and collaboration among individual Community-Based Heritage Language (CBHL) schools teaching the same language and the benefits that it can bring. Collaboration might include forming and working with an umbrella organization. CBHL school representatives working with many languages joined the discussion and shared the ways that they are collaborating in different fashions and with different formats. It was a rich discussion, and we plan to continue it. The slides can be used as a guideline for you to think about the nature of your collaborations and how you might expand and enrich them. We would love to learn more about how you are collaborating with other CBHL schools teaching your language or working with umbrella organizations for your language. If you would like to share your story about this, please write to Joy Peyton, joy@peytons.us, and I will compile and share them. Please copy the Cafe Moderators, tludanyi@snet.net and sbelluz@dsclt.com, when you share your story.

Linda Egnatz, Masako Douglas, and Eva Prionas shared key information about creating successful pathways to proficiency for students, answering these questions: What might this pathway look like in a given program? What tests are used and what do they measure? Who should take the tests and why? What are best practices in preparing learners to take the test? What will learners gain by testing for proficiency? How does the Global Seal of Biliteracy support pathways to proficiency?

Dr. Renata Emilsson Peskova, President of Móðurmál, the Association on Bilingualism, in Iceland, presented a Webinar on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and Community-Based Heritage Language Schools. Attached are the presentation slides and a report by Bibiam M. González Rodríguez on her Spanish lessons with a group of students 9-12 years old, based on the Goals.

Four webinars were held by leaders in the Sava Online Serbian school on heritage language instruction in a virtual context.

Leaders from the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools and the International Heritage Languages Association (IHLA) discuss how heritage language schools have adapted to the COVID-19 crisis and share survey responses from teachers and school leaders from across the United States.

Fabrice Jaumont gives a dynamic description of the importance of being bilingual/multilingual and the value that it brings to individuals and communities.