The citizenship classes Karina Vasquez Lopez attends on weeknights are as much for her infant son as they are for her.
The classes at Galveston’s L.A. Morgan Elementary School library are helping Lopez, who recently immigrated from Mexico, learn English and study for a citizenship test. Her real goal, however, is to help her son with his homework when he starts school.
On a recent weeknight, Lopez and eight other immigrants crowded into plastic chairs built for elementary students and pored over maps of the United States in a class offered through a partnership between Galveston’s public school district and College of the Mainland.
As the state’s Hispanic population grows, public schools are rethinking the ways they communicate with Spanish-speaking parents. They are offering English and citizenship courses, translating school documents, dubbing audio recordings of board meetings in Spanish and hiring interpreters in an attempt to reach parents who historically have not been deeply involved in their children’s education.
Critical Period
The timing is critical, said Joe Bean, spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association.
Hispanic students drop out at a higher rate than other students and, as the Hispanic population grows, the state is nearing a dropout crisis, he said. But the trend can be reversed. Data shows the one tried-and-true method to curb dropouts is to encourage parents to get involved at school by volunteering in the classroom, joining parent-teacher associations or helping with homework, Bean said.
School officials have a tough time coaxing Spanish-speaking parents into classrooms, however. More than anything, they are hindered from talking to teachers and attending school board meetings by the language barrier.
Maximilla Mendoza, an island mother of five, said she cannot comprehend her children’s teachers or the automated phone messages the district sometimes leaves at her house.
“Everything is in English and I don’t understand,” she said.
Other times, immigrants work two or more jobs and employers won’t let them off to attend school functions, Mendoza said. Or they fear school officials will want to see their identification if they volunteer, said James Martinez, spokesman for the National Parent Teacher Association.
‘El Maestro’
Moreover, Hispanic immigrants often have different cultural expectations of the function of public schools. The teacher, “el maestro,” is highly respected, said Michael Marquez, the principal of a predominately Hispanic elementary campus in the Clear Creek district. Immigrant parents worry that questioning teachers and principals is disrespectful or offensive and thus feel they don’t belong in the schoolhouse, said Marquez, whose parents immigrated from Guatemala.
But studies have shown that when parents are involved in education, students perform better, miss fewer days, behave better and have more confidence, according to the National Education Association.
“Parents shouldn’t let a stranger teach their child,” Martinez said. “Decades and decades of research show something very simple — when parents are involved, children succeed, regardless of socioeconomic status.”
National and state organizations have launched campaigns aimed at increasing Hispanic parent involvement in schools. The National Parent Teacher Association encourages its members to translate documents, host meetings away from school, at churches, coffee shops or homes, and go door-to-door to build personal relationships with immigrants.
With the help of grant money, the Texas State Teachers Association in August launched a one-minute Spanish radio advertisement promoting parental involvement as a way to curb dropouts. The ad aired on radio stations in four South Texas counties and in some Mexican cities.
On Their Own
Local school officials, on the other hand, are essentially on their own to devise ways to welcome all parents into classrooms.
The Texas Education Agency, which has a Web site only in English, offers little guidance. Without state funding or direction, school officials pick what they think are the best ways to communicate with Spanish-speaking parents.
While districts with few Hispanic students, like Santa Fe public school district, need only translate important school documents in Spanish, others, such as Margaret McWhirter Elementary School in Webster, remake themselves as cultural hubs for the community in order to draw in Spanish-speaking parents.
Cultural Hub
At McWhirter Elementary School, nearly half the students have limited proficiency in English. Most are low-income and live in apartment complexes. They move in and out of the school zone. Their parents don’t drive, and few have computers at home.
In an effort to bolster parent involvement, the school opened a parent room. In the brightly colored room just a few feet from the school’s front door, parent coordinator Lucy Ahern helps parents learn English, use the Internet and fill out rent applications, school forms and employment documents. If they need food or clothes, she sends them to the school’s on-site social worker.
What’s happened is that parents stay at school to observe classrooms and eat breakfast and lunch with their children.
Principal Marquez spends the day shaking hands and exchanging “holas” with parents in the hallways and cafeterias — his effort to let parents know they’re welcome at McWhirter Elementary School, regardless of their native tongue.
“We’re building relationships with the parents and bringing down the wall,” he said.
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At a glance
What is your school district doing to communicate with Spanish-speaking parents?
Clear Creek — offers important district documents in Spanish, including handbooks and grading procedures; prints the Parent-teacher association newsletter partly in Spanish; holds English and citizenship classes.
Galveston — offers district documents in Spanish, recently started translating board agendas in Spanish and bringing translators to board meetings; offers English and citizenship classes; translates some district information on GISD-TV.
La Marque — sends newsletters in Spanish, translated all No Child Left Behind documents and hired aides to act as interpreters.
Texas City — offers translators at district and school meetings; purchased headphones and equipment to immediately translate live meetings.
