Beth Hanlon, 2017-2018 OFLA President
Spanish Teacher, Oberlin High School

The 2018 OFLA conference is taking shape and it is incredible to watch it all come together! The OFLA board is very excited to provide this professional development opportunity for our members! I would like to take this time to give you more details in regards to the conference. Please make sure to click on the links throughout this article for additional information!

The conference has spent many years at great locations in Columbus but this year it is traveling to Cleveland! The Cleveland Marriott is located at 127 Public Square (Entrance at 1360 West Mall Drive). Please plan for valet parking at the hotel. The hotel is $139/per night plus any applicable fees and taxes.

The meeting area is all on the second floor of the hotel. Taking the escalator from the first floor will bring you to the North Foyer, nearest to the meetings rooms A-H. From the escalators, registration is straight ahead, past the large windows that give you a view of Cleveland. If you arrive via the elevator, you will come into the West Foyer with registration directly ahead. While the meeting rooms A-H are located in the North Foyer by the escalator, the meeting rooms Huron, Erie, Superior and Ontario are closest to registration and the West Foyer.

The hotel is conveniently located near Cleveland’s Public Square. This lends itself to restaurants that are within walking distance of the hotel. The hotel is also located near Tower Cinema which hosts the Cleveland International Film Fest (CIFF). What luck it is that OFLA and CIFF are running concurrently this year! CIFF is thrilled to be working with us in order to provide conference attendees a FREE opportunity to attend a Student FilmSlam with area students. This will allow you to see the program first hand! Though this is a free opportunity, CIFF does require sign up. Please make sure to do this when you register for the conference in January.

January 15th is the day of registration! Early bird registration runs until March 2nd at the cost of $50 for Professional Members. Please visit the OFLA Member Lodge for more details on pricing. Registration gives you access to the sessions that run Friday and Saturday of the conference as well as the CIFF event. Workshops run all day Thursday and Saturday morning at additional costs.

Friday night will be the OFLA Awards Banquet to recognize our award winners, scholarship recipients and Teacher of the Year. Carol Gaab will be speaking at the banquet. The banquet is at an extra cost and you can sign up when registering for the conference.

We have over 100 great sessions and approximately 15 workshops from our featured speakers and our amazing Ohio teachers! If you have not already, make sure to visit the list of session and workshop descriptions available here: https://goo.gl/yosvjX. Our keynote speaker is Dr. Paul Toth from Temple University in Philadelphia. Dr. Toth was my mentor while in graduate school at the University of Akron. I learned a great deal from him and am thrilled that he will be giving the keynote as well as a 3 hour workshop on Thursday and a session Friday afternoon.

Martina Bex will also be joining us in Cleveland! She will lead a workshop on Thursday and another on Saturday as well as presenting a session on Friday. In addition to the Awards Banquet speech, Carol Gaab will also be presenting a session on Friday as well as a workshop on Saturday morning. Lisa Shepard, the 2016 OFLA Teacher of the Year, will be returning to Ohio for the 2018 conference to present workshops on both Thursday and Saturday about IPAs as well as a session Friday.

We hope you can join us in April at the Cleveland Marriott! A downloadable letter for administrators has been prepared if you need support to attend the conference. It is available here: https://goo.gl/QMthvX

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions to the 2018 conference. See you in Cleveland!