The Wonders of Promoting School Involvement From Spanish Speaking Parents
By Esther J. Cepeda, NBCLatinoCHICAGO — Something bordering on the miraculous happened at my community high school the other night: The parents who speak only Spanish were included and respected in a meeting in a way that did not turn the whole thing into a big, fat mess.
In the past, the school district’s well-intentioned efforts to include non-English-speaking parents in assemblies had turned them into long, plodding exercises in maintaining focus through short bursts and long pauses.
A presenter would impart a message in chunks and a translator would repeat the information in Spanish. Invariably, the English speaker would go for way too long without breaking to let the translator catch up. Then the Spanish information would stream out, sometimes too quickly to understand.
The crowd would get shifty and exasperated because both audiences were waiting to hear the portion that was for them. The presentations would take twice as long as they would have in a single language, and some parents left agitated.
When piling out of the gymnasium or auditorium, it was not uncommon to hear loud complaints of English-only