Greetings PAIS Members,

It’s the start of a new year and soon we will be gathering for TESOL 2017 in Seattle. We hope that you will join us for the many interesting sessions and meetings relevant to PAIS members. We especially hope you will attend the two panels we have prepared for you. The InterSection panel titled “Sustaining Enrollment: Innovative Ways to Keep Your Program Afloat” is no doubt highly relevant to many of those in the PAIS community, and the academic panel, “Maintaining Morale in Difficult Times,” will hopefully provide some insight on how to navigate through some rough waters.

This latest PAIS Newsletter offers several interesting articles for you to enjoy. You can read about how one district formed a collaborative team to serve small schools with ELL populations. Another article looks at how to promote the image of ESL through professional development, while a third discusses helping traditional teachers adapt to a hybrid/blended program. A fourth article addresses how one program evaluated its success by following up with graduates. Additionally, there is an informative review of Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow's Workplace. Last, but not least, you will get to meet Michaela Colombo, associate professor in curriculum and instruction at UMass Lowell, in the “Meet the Member” column.

At the upcoming convention, our current co-chairs Linda Wesley and Angela Dornbusch will be passing the baton to us. We would like to thank Linda and Angela for their strong leadership and guidance over this last year. We will do our best to follow in their footsteps! With that, we would like to introduce the 2017–2018 team:

Co-Chairs: Elizabeth Gould and Sandra Tompson Issa
Co-Chairs-Elect: Alicia Going and Tom Tasker
Community Manager: Misty Popovich
Member-at-Large: Lara Ravitch
Past Chairs: Angela Dornbusch and Linda Wesley

We look forward to seeing you at the PAIS Open Meeting at TESOL 2017, scheduled for Wednesday, 22 March, from 5 pm–6:30 pm in Room 613 in the Washington State Convention Center.

With best wishes for a productive and innovative year,

Elizabeth and Sandra