Bilingual speakers volunteer services
Posted on Tuesday, April 8, 2008
SPRINGDALE — When Jennifer Penate started school in Rogers, she was one of just three Hispanic students in her elementary classes.
Resources for children like Penate, who moved to the United States from El Salvador, were reflective of the small population of foreign-language families in the mostly Englishspeaking school district.
As she continued through school, Springdale’s immigrant student population grew.
Penate, 18, now a freshman communications major at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, will join about 120 community volunteers in interpreting parent-teacher conferences for families in the Springdale School District this week.
The services became necessary as several Northwest Arkansas districts took on an increasing number of foreignlanguage speaking families, said Jaime Miller, who coordinates Springdale volunteer interpreters.
Northwest Arkansas’ four largest school districts rely on community volunteers to assist parents who might not comprehend conversations with teachers.
“A lot of our parents have some English ability, but we don’t want to just assume,” she said.
Springdale has 6, 421 English-language learners, who represent 37 percent of the district’s overall enrollment. Rogers has 3, 642 such students, or 27 percent of its total enrollment. Rogers students come from homes with 29 primary languages, and Springdale students come from homes with 37, according to the school districts.
The most common dialect of foreign-language speaking parents is Spanish, followed by Marshallese, Miller said. She recruits volunteer interpreters from businesses, chambers of commerce and area colleges to assist during conferences. She has more than 150 Spanish speakers in her volunteer database, but just four Marshallese speakers.
Volunteers completed training last week to familiarize themselves with confidentiality polices and cultural issues.
“The interpreters have the freedom to help bridge the gap culturally,” Miller said. “Parents have to adjust to the idea that they’re expected to take a more active role.” Volunteers also learned how to interpret English-only idioms, like “cute as a button,” in words that non-English speaking parents can understand.
The Springdale district began using volunteer interpreters to supplement bilingual district staff in 2004 after an advocacy group filed a complaint with the U. S. Department of Education. The group claimed that the use of Springdale High School students as interpreters during the conferences violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of color, race and national origin in programs that receive federal financial assistance from the Department of Education. Some non-English speaking parents still lean on their bilingual children to interpret for them, Miller told volunteers. But the district encourages interpreters to step in and offer assistance in those situations. District staff interpret in special conferences, which include issues with which volunteers may not be familiar, Miller said.
To contact this reporter: eblad@arkansasonline. com
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