The changing demographics in U.S. classrooms creates challenges as well as opportunities for teachers in K-12. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2023), there are close to 5 million students in public schools in the U.S. and over 400 spoken languages used in schools. Interestingly, the trend shows that as students move from lower to higher grade levels, the percentage of ELs decrease due to increasing English language proficiency (NCES, 2023). While this is promising news, there are still challenges. The challenges are multifaceted and are often socio-cultural and socio-political in nature. For one, in some settings, dual-lingual students are still not allowed to speak their primary languages within schools, but are required to only speak English. The belief is that students who are immersed within an English setting will learn the language quicker and more proficiently, thereby providing a clearer career-readiness path. In other cases, teachers are either not willing or knowledgeable about how to embed students’ cultures and languages in their instruction. Additionally, there is a tendency to view students’ linguistic and cultural differences as subtractive, rather than as valuable resources. However, we believe that there can be a shift from this negative mindset to educators having a deeper understanding of how students’ languages and cultures might be viewed as assets to enrich teaching and learning. Furthermore, as teachers’ cultural competencies increase and they learn new strategies on integrating these assets, there will be a more enriching classroom that includes all learners. To this end, our strand will highlight ways teachers, school administrators, and teacher educators’ sharpened understanding on cultural and linguistic identities can help shape more inclusive classrooms.