Sustaining Contributions
This is a recognition awarded to current or past NAELPA members to recognize their service to the organization. Recipients are current or previous NAELPA executive board member or committee members of NAELPA for at least 3 years and show strong evidence of contributions to the organization that have created lasting change or growth.
2024 Recipient - Jesse Markow
For the past six years, Jesse Markow has been engaged as an independent consultant in K-12 strategy and business development. Prior to that, he served as the Chief Strategy and Development Officer for the WIDA Consortium for over 10 years, acting as the principal point of contact for state departments of education while initiating multiple endeavors, including the WIDA Annual Conference and WIDA International. For many years, Jesse managed the development of statewide customized test programs for ETS and Riverside in addition to consulting for Avant Assessment, TESOL, Learnosity, Confianza, and other organizations within the United States and international school markets. He is a past chair of the Association of Test Publishers Education Division and has presented at numerous conferences and professional development venues, most recently at an international education conference held in Vienna, Austria, September 2023. Currently, Jesse serves on the Board of Directors for New Meridian Corporation and as the co-chair of the 2024 NAELPA conference. Jesse grew up in upstate New York and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the Master of Arts in Teaching at Northwestern University before teaching middle school and high school geography and social studies for 18 years, both domestically and abroad. Jesse resides in Madison, Wisconsin, with his partner and soulmate, Teri Dobbs, and as a significant human for Asti the Wonder Dog.
2023 - Ivanna Mann Thrower Anderson
Ivanna Mann Thrower Anderson is past president of the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators (NAELPA) and is their Advancing Multilingual Policy and Practice Committee (AMPP) co-chair. Ivanna has served as an ML/Title III Consultant with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction since 2009. She has worked with multilingual learners in the US, Korea, and China, for almost 40 years, and has served students from the pre-K classroom through the offices of corporate presidents.
2022 - Mari Rasmussen
Mari B. Rasmussen’s career reflects her love of diverse cultures and languages. This interest helped her in her choice of teaching English as a second language and first teaching job overseas in Izmir, Turkey. She then went on to teach Multilingual Learners in her home state of North Dakota. Mari has a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from the University of North Dakota, with cognates in literacy, EL multicultural learners. Her M.Ed. is in Reading Education. Her undergraduate degrees are in English and Art Education. She is licensed to teach elementary classroom, secondary English language arts, English Learners, K – 12 and visual arts K – 12. Mari has presented and published nationally in various areas of Multilingual/Multicultural Education. Mari has also been involved in education in several capacities outside the K – 12 classroom, including higher education, the state education agency in North Dakota and the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition at George Washington University.
Mari has always been a strong advocate for the needs of Multilingual Learners. She was instrumental in starting a national association to support Bilingual/English Learner program directors at the SEAs across the nation. Currently Mari lives in Bismarck, ND. She continues her love of teaching and diversity by teaching part time for Valley City State University and part time for Standing Rock Community Schools in Fort Yates, ND.
2022 - Dr. Pedro Ruiz
Lifte time Member - Dr. David Holbrook
Dr. Holbrook earned his Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of the West Indies in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and has experience working with speakers of other languages since before the turn of the century. He has lived in five countries and worked in more than 15. He spent nearly six years at the Wyoming Department of Education, where he held positions as Federal Programs Division Director, Title I Director, Title III Director, and for six months was Director of both the Federal Programs and Assessment Divisions. Dr. Holbrook also served as the state’s Native American Education Consultant working with the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Dr. Holbrook trained with the U.S. Department of Education and participated in federal monitoring of Title III in five states. He has served on the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators (NAELPA) since 2009 in the roles of Secretary, President Elect, and two years as President. He also served as an Advisor to the board for four years and has served in the role of NAELPA’s Executive Director starting the 2018-2019 Executive Board Year.