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Light Rain Striving to break the language barrier
Lawrence school officials and Latino residents seek to improve communication
“Tonight we’re making history,” Inwood resident Juan Zepeda said as he addressed Lawrence School District Superintendent Gary Schall, Assistant Superintendent for Student and Community Affairs Pat Pizzarelli and Board of Education trustee Dr. David Sussman and residents of the Latino community at the Lawrence Middle School on Jan. 25.
In what is considered the first official meeting between a group of Latino residents and Lawrence School District administration, the goal is to form a partnership and address issues such as high school dropout rates, bilingual staff and increasing motivation among Latino students.
Five Towns Community Center Youth Advocacy Counselor Veronica Ortiz and Community Organizer Felipe Plaza, who spearhead the Latino Empowerment Project at the community center, which seeks to give Hispanics a voice as well as an understanding of the educational and legal systems, led the meeting.
According to Plaza, a substantial portion of Latino parents in the Lawrence School District choose not to attend parent/teacher conferences because English is not their first language and if they are undocumented, a larger fear comes into play. “It’s a major issue for parents because they feel they won’t be understood,” he said. “Parents can have their child translate but they might not tell the truth. Undocumented parents are also afraid that someone is out there looking for them.”
Schall and Pizzarelli recognized that the language barrier and immigration statuses are two hurdles the district needs to overcome. Schall said, in his opinion, the biggest problem is that many of the school district’s teachers don’t identify with whom they’re teaching. “We need to seriously improve our hiring process and training of our teachers,” he said. “There are many teachers out there who speak Spanish and it’s important so your voice is continually heard in the school system.”
Pizzarelli suggested conversational Spanish be taught to all teachers and translation software be brought into district buildings.
