July 19-27, 2025
Summer Institute:
Centering Language, Culture, & Art
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 Staff
Co-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.
Cristina Sánchez-López
Co-President, Paridad
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.
What Previous Attendees Are Saying
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.
"As an educator this learning experience in Oaxaca has reinforced the "big goal" in education- that students need to learn by owning their own learning. I enjoyed the concept of having the class outside- it was an immersion of all the senses. This approach reminded me how important - experiences are for the learning process and it was the best educational trip I have ever experienced!"
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"I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to experience the immense natural beauty, proud traditions and the vibrant cultures of Oaxaca, Mexico during the Oaxaca institute 2024. I appreciated being immersed in the rich history, work values, knowledge of nature and respect for living. There are so many correlations to life that were generously shared through ancient and modern practices, foods and celebration. With so much more to see and learn, I hope to return someday to make more connections."
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"Everything was thoughtfully and beautifully planned out for us. All the excursions, meals and experiences were so memorable. I only wish our time in Oaxaca could have been longer.."
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"I had an amazing time! Honestly I would love to have my family experience this."
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Summer 2024 Participants
"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