Michael Pobanz, Ph.D., was raised in Los Angeles, California, a rich multicultural and multilingual environment. Dr. Pobanz studied psychology for one year at the University of Madrid, Complutense. He has taught English in both Spain and in Japan, and traveled to nearly 50 countries around the world.  Dr. Pobanz earned his doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he had earned a 4-year U.C. Regents Special Fellowship for research (the highest fellowship award in the UC system).  Dr. Pobanz currently works for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the USA (more than 640,000 students), as a trilingual school psychologist.  He conducts psycho-educational evaluations in 3 languages, counsels students, parents and staff, and supports school- and district-level reforms.  Dr. Pobanz also works privately as a Licensed Educational Psychologist.  Last year he won the LAASP Outstanding School Psychologist of the Year Award.

Los Angeles has an extremely diverse population with about 1/3 of the population speaking English less than “very well.”  Los Angeles County has about 10 million residents, and people from nearly every country in the world.  In Los Angeles Unified School District, where Michael Pobanz, Ph.D., is employed as a trilingual school psychologist, over 90 different languages are spoken.  There are even more important cultural differences.  How does a school support and integrate so many students from such a large variety of backgrounds?  Dr. Pobanz will explain various best practices a school can use, along with various challenges that can hinder true and healthy integration.  Integration, in this sense, has to not only respect, but also to utilize and to celebrate as many cultural differences as possible.