Professional development
Partner with Fugees Family to Support Your Multilingual Learners
For more than two decades, Fugees Family has worked alongside students, families, educators, and school systems to build learning environments where newcomer students can succeed. Our professional learning brings that experience directly to your team, combining practical strategies, real-world insights, and the voices of refugees and immigrants.
94%
satisfaction with Fugees professional development sessions
20+ years
working with Multilingual Learners
Ways We Can Help
Standalone Sessions
Three-hour, in-person sessions built around real-world scenarios, hands-on practice, and strategies educators can use immediately.
Train the Trainer
A three-hour, in-person session customized to your district's needs. Leaders leave with the protocols, tools, and resources to train their own staff to respond to immigration enforcement with safety, confidentiality, and calm.
Customized Online Trainings
Turn any of our three-hour sessions into a focused one-hour online training tailored to your district's needs.
Three-Day Series
Three six-hour learning days focused on family partnership, language development, and belonging, with reusable materials to extend the learning across your school or district.
Standalone Sessions
Our three-hour, in-person sessions dig into each topic through real-world scenarios and practical strategies the entire staff can use immediately. Follow-up resources help educators carry the learning into their classrooms and schools. Each session can also be customized as a focused one-hour online training.
The Refugee & Immigrant Experience
Who are our newcomer students, and what experiences, strengths, and challenges do they bring to our schools? Participants explore the refugee experience, pathways to resettlement, and the cultural contexts that shape students’ lives. Through interactive activities and asset-based strategies, educators learn practical ways to build meaningful connections, honor student identities, and create classrooms where refugee and immigrant students can thrive.
Design Thinking: Centering User Experience for Inclusive Schools
How can we improve the school experience for newcomer students? This hands-on session introduces design thinking as a practical way to identify barriers and build more welcoming, accessible schools. Educators examine the student and family experience, work through real-world challenges, and develop solutions they can apply in their own schools.
English Language Acquisition
How do students acquire a new language, and how can educators support that development while honoring students’ cultural identities? This session explores stages of second-language acquisition, the relationship between language and culture, and strategies for supporting students across proficiency levels. Participants leave with practical tools for creating asset-based classrooms that support both academic language development and meaningful access to learning.
Family Engagement, Belonging & Relationship Building
Strong family-school partnerships are essential to student success. This session equips educators with practical strategies for effective communication, home visits, and culturally responsive family engagement. Through handson activities, participants build cultural understanding, strengthen relationships, and identify new ways to create school communities where refugee and immigrant families feel welcomed, valued, and included.
School Counselors: Supporting Refugee & Immigrant Students
School counselors help refugee and immigrant students work through uncertainty, trauma, cultural transitions, and unfamiliar school systems. Through interactive case studies, participants explore intake practices, mandated reporting, culturally responsive communication, sensitive family situations, and strategies for building trust. The session also addresses counselor well-being and burnout prevention so staff can sustain this important work.
Trauma-Informed Practices: Staff Supporting Refugee & Immigrant Students
Immigration uncertainty, displacement, family separation, and other experiences can affect how students learn, build relationships, and experience school. This session helps educators recognize signs of stress and trauma while responding in ways that build safety, trust, and resilience. Through realistic scenarios and practical strategies, participants learn how to support students without defining them by the challenges they have experienced.
Train the Trainer
Train the Trainer: Immigration Enforcement Preparedness
Is your school prepared if immigration enforcement activity affects your students or families? This three-hour, in-person session is tailored to your district and helps staff and leaders build clear, practical protocols for school response teams and everyone in the building before a crisis occurs. Participants examine response roles, communication plans, family preparedness, legal and procedural considerations, and confidentiality through realistic scenarios. Teams leave with a customized slide deck, facilitator guide, and participant workbook so all staff can respond calmly, consistently, and with student safety at the center.
Customized Online Trainings
Need focused professional learning for a larger team, multiple buildings, or a specific challenge?
We can customize any of our three-hour, in-person sessions into a focused one-hour online training. We’ll work with your team to identify the most relevant content and build a practical session around the needs of your educators and students.
Three Six-Hour Days
Our Professional Development Series
Three learning days. One stronger school experience.
Practical professional learning for schools serving multilingual students and families.
A welcoming school experience takes more than a good first day. Families need meaningful partnerships with schools. Students need access to challenging learning and opportunities to develop academic English. They also need daily routines and relationships that help them feel safe, connected, and able to participate.
This three-day series helps teams strengthen all three. Each six-hour learning day includes discussion, team activities, practice with realistic scenarios, and time to improve an existing school practice. Schools can schedule the days when each topic is most relevant.
Why choose the full three-day series?
Together, the three days connect family partnership, language development, and student belonging. School teams gain a comprehensive picture of how these experiences shape learning and how they can strengthen them across their school community.
Schools selecting the full series also receive the presentation slides, facilitator guide, and participant workbook. These reusable tools help school and district leaders text the learning to additional staff and continue the work after the series ends.
Your Three Learning Days
Day 1
Beyond the Welcome
What does it take for families to feel that they truly belong in the school community?
A warm welcome is a beginning. Lasting partnership grows when families feel understood, valued, and able to contribute. This learning day explores how schools can strengthen trust and build more meaningful relationships with multilingual families.
Day 2
The Language Advantage
What becomes possible when language is treated as a pathway to learning?
Multilingual students bring knowledge, experiences, and strengths into every classroom. This learning day explores how educators can build on those assets while supporting academic English development, access to grade-level learning, and progress toward English proficiency.
Day 3
A School Where We Belong
How can a school become a place where students and staff feel safe, supported, and connected?
Belonging is shaped by the experiences students have throughout the school day. This learning day explores the role of relationships, consistency, and responsive practices in creating school environments where students as well as staff choose to show up, participate, and thrive.
Three six-hour days. One connected learning experience.
Resources to keep it going.
Tell us which sessions interest you
Questions before you book
What does professional development cost?
Pricing depends on the session, the format, and your district's specific training needs. Tell us which sessions interest you and we’ll send dates, formats and pricing within two business days. We can also work with many districts to help identify funding and grant options.
Are sessions in person or online?
Both. Most standalone sessions run in person as three-hour in-person workshops. Many of these sessions are also available as one-hour, live online trainings.
Can you tailor a session to our district?
Yes. We can build a session around your educators and the students in your community. We can also bring in partners such as immigration attorneys or mental health experts to offer one-on-one coaching for your program team.
Who are the sessions for?
Teachers, counselors, administrators, and district team members working with Multilingual Learners and their families.
How can I share the options with my team?
Download the catalog below. It has every session in one PDF, ready to send to your superintendent, ML coordinator or PD team. We can also schedule a meeting with you and other team members to see how we can help.
What happens after I send a request?
We’ll reply quickly with dates, formats and pricing for the sessions you picked. Not sure which sessions fit? Book a short call below, and we can walk you through our options.
Bringing this to your district?
Download the catalog and pass it along to the people who plan professional development for your schools.
Build the Right Professional Development for Your Team
Every school community is different. Tell us about your students, your educators, and the challenges you're working to solve. We'll help you identify the right training or build a customized professional learning experience for your school or district.
