Director of Bilingual Education & World Languages in Bridgeport, CT

Ana Sousa-Martins has over 20 years of experience in the field of education. She is the Director of Bilingual Education and World Languages for the Bridgeport Public Schools for K-12. She holds a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from Southern CT State University, a M.A.T. in Elementary Education from Sacred Heart University, a Sixth Year in Bilingual Education and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Fairfield University, and a certification as a Literacy Specialist and Educational Leadership from Sacred Heart University.

She has conducted many workshops on a variety of topics that include curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment, Professional Learning Communities, SRBI, Data Teams, and Data-Driven Decision-Making. Her quest for educational challenges has led to involvement in many committees and task forces as well as being an adjunct professor at Sacred Heart University.

She has received the following awards: Milken Educator Award, Bridgeport Teacher of the Year, and BPEF Outstanding Teacher Award.

High School ESL Teacher BeGlad CAT SYSOP EL Summit Webmaster

Kiria Cruz Wang is a certified ESL teacher who teaches English as a second language at Harding High School.  She is tech-savvy and loves to integrate technology into the classroom. Cruz started her teaching career in 2006 in Puerto Rico as an English teacher and has offered workshops in technology integration in Puerto Rico and in Connecticut. She has a Bachelor's Degree and 25 graduate credits in TESOL from the University of Puerto Rico and graduated from Saint Joseph University in Hartford, CT in May 2017, where she completed a Master's Degree in Educational Technology.
     Additionally, Cruz is a certified agency trainer for BeGLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) and the school webmaster. She was featured in the CT Mirror and TeachersofCT.org. She aims to contribute significantly to her school, the Bilingual Department, and the community in Bridgeport, CT.

Elementary School ESL Teacher

Cristina DaSilva-Novotny, who originated from Lisbon, Portugal, is currently an English to Speakers of Other Languages teacher at Blackham Elementary School. Cristina has taught art K-8, Early Childhood K-2, TESOL K-12, and self-contained Bilingual Portuguese 7-8. As both an EL and a 25-year veteran of the Bridgeport School System, Cristina has always focused on advocating for all second language learners by participating on curriculum committees, School Governance Council, SRBI, data teams both at school and district levels, and as a Teacher Liaison for the Blackham PAC (Parent Advisory Council). Cristina is also a teacher mentor and a reader for the Connecticut Teacher Education and Mentoring Program.

Elementary School ESL Teacher

Mayra Medina received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and Certification in Elementary Education from Sacred Heart University. She received a Master's Degree and 6th-year credits from Southern CT State University and Fairfield University. Mayra Medina has been teaching in the Bridgeport Public School System for 30 years where she has served as a classroom teacher for eight years and Mathematics Coach for thirteen years. She was an English Language Learner herself as an early elementary student in Bridgeport and knew she would one day pursue a career in TESOL.  She received a cross-endorsement in TESOL and is currently teaching ESL at Madison School to students in K - 6th. Mayra is a committed teacher and an active community member.

Elementary School ESL Teacher

Brenda McVetty received her undergraduate degree in Elementary Education/ English at Western CT State University. She received her Master's from Sacred Heart University. She taught 3rd/4th grade at Winthrop School for 19 years. Her love and dedication to her EL students guided her to become an ESL teacher, and she has served the K-8 student population at Waltersville School since then. Brenda always does her best to motivate and encourage her students to be successful and self-confident learners.

Elementary School ESL Teacher

Layla Intellisano is a K-8 ESL Teacher for the Bridgeport Public Schools. She earned her master’s degree in teaching from Sacred Heart University and 6th year in TESOL from Fairfield University. She began her teaching career in Adult TESOL in 1998, and upon her 6th year and endorsement completion, she began teaching K-8 TESOL.

She served as the PBIS Coach and CommPACT Facilitator at the district and school level, in partnership with the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and is a trained Teacher Mentor for the Bridgeport Public Schools. She provides professional development at the national, district, and school levels in areas of ML Policy & Procedure, ML Advocacy, Standards-Based Instruction, and Second Language Acquisition. Layla currently serves as ML Professional Development Trainer of Trainers, based in Washington, DC, and serves as an ML advocate and consultant in private practice serving numerous counties in CT and NY.

ESL Program Assistant

Dalila DaSilva Lynch was born in Lisbon, Portugal.  She is currently an English to Speakers of Other Languages Program Assistant at Blackham Elementary School. Dalila has been an Instructional Assistant in  Early Childhood Pre Kindergarten (12 years), in a self-contained Bilingual Portuguese 7-8 and Spanish 6-8 (9 years).   As both an EL and a 20 year veteran of the Bridgeport School System, Dalila has always focused on advocating for all second language learners by participating in the School parent Leadership Group and  Blackham PAC (Parent Advisory Council). 

EL Instructional Specialist K-12

Laurie Maurao received her Bachelor of Science degree from Florida State University. She received her master's degree in Elementary Education from the University of Bridgeport in 2000. This is Laurie’s 22nd year of teaching. She started her teaching career as a third-grade teacher at Thomas Hooker Elementary for three years. She then became certified as an elementary teacher in Florida and taught 3rd grade for three years at Manatee Bay Elementary in Broward County. Upon returning to CT, Laurie taught for 5 years as a third-grade teacher at Columbus School and then the next 7 years as second grade teacher at Multicultural Magnet School. Laurie became certified with her TESOL cross-endorsement in 2018 and became an ESL teacher at Gerladine Claytor Magnet Academy. She worked with Multilingual learners at Claytor for 4 years. This past November, Laurie took on a new position as the EL Instructional Specialist for the district. She hopes that in this new role, she will be able to support and give our teachers guidance in teaching the Multilingual learners in their classrooms.