Language barrier limits Latino students’ parents school involvement

The report, completed last fall, is based on data from specifically targeted schools with high Latino populations and was part of a collaborative effort involving the University of Maryland, College Park and the Prince George’s school system.

“This report was designed to get a feel from Latino parents as to how they felt they could be more involved in the schools, and how they felt they could be more helpful to the schools and how the schools could be more helpful to them,” said Martin Johnson, of the university, who contributed to the report.

Irene Zoppi, the former director of the Latino Student Access and Success Project, based at UMCP, had been scheduled to discuss her findings with the State Board of Education last week. She was forced to cancel due to illness.

In terms of the language barrier, there are two issues, according to the report: “parents’ lack of English skills and the schools’ lack of bilingual personnel.” In addition, Johnson said, another interesting finding was that when schools sent home messages in Spanish, many Latino parents couldn’t read them.

“If it would come in English, the children could read it to their parents,” Johnson said.

“I think the report merely reaffirmed what we knew,” said Bruce Katz, the school system’s officer of higher education partnerships.

According to schools spokesman John White, new superintendent John Deasy has implemented a plan for each of the system’s 205 schools to have parent liaisons by the 2008-09 school year. There were 110 parent liaisons this year.

“The goal is to have parent liaisons in every school and to have a bilingual liaison [where] needed,” White said.

By 2008-09, White said, each county school will also have a parent resource center.

In addition, White said, the school system is increasingly sending out information in English and Spanish.

dfowler@dcexaminer.com