In my experience, most schools handle communication with families who speak a language other than English in one of two ways: Way #1: The school essentially does nothing to ensure the family receives communication and access in their preferred language. The families are, in essence, kept in the dark because no one has installed the electricity. Sad and illegal, but it happens ... Way #2: The school employs a free or paid tool to translate digital communication and/or hires strategically to bridge the language divide: maybe a full-time staff member who happens to speak another language or maybe an actual family liaison. That strategic hiring then checks the box, and everyone else forgets about multilingual communication. It's been handled. Both of these approaches are a problem. What is communication ... really? But before we get into why, let's take a moment to step back and consider what communication in a school setting really is. Communication in a school setting is access to information, programming, and people. If communication is not happening in a language families can understand, parents and caregivers don't have access to the information they need to parent. For example, a Spanish-speaking parent wouldn't know that a traveling clinic is coming to campus to provide vaccinations, and therefore cannot make the decision of signing the release form. Or a Portuguese-speaking family is unaware that before care is available on campus, so their child misses many days of school simply because without that before care option, the parent can't figure out how to get their child to school before they have to be at work. If communication is not happening in a language families can understand, parents and caregivers don't have access to the programming that English-speaking parents are able to access for their child. For instance, a Somali-speaking parent wouldn't know that they can sign up for after school enrichment clubs like art or track or chess; therefore, their child doesn't get to participate, not out of a choice but because their parent didn't even know. Or a Lao-speaking parent doesn't know that tutoring is available after school, so even though the school wants these particular parents to sign up their child, they don't -- again, not out of choice, but as a result of ineffective communication. If communication is not happening in a language families can understand, parents and caregivers don't have access to people at school. This is a big one. People in a school are the school. People in schools create community. Through relationships and even seemingly simple conversations, they change life trajectories. Without access to people, parents miss out on both. But because these are hard to measure, they often go overlooked. For example, an Arabic-speaking parent might not know that parent-teacher conferences are happening... much less how to sign up... much less whether they will have language support when they get there; as a result, this parent doesn't attend a conference and is unable to cultivate a relationship with the teacher who looks after their child all day long. (Likewise, that teacher is unable to cultivate a relationship with the parent of the child they are responsible for). A teacher who may have encouraged the parent to keep their child in accelerated math even when their child wants to return to the regular math track, can't do that, and the student switches tracks despite their potential. Or a parent has questions about transportation, but doesn't know who to talk to about it, so they have to go through the ELL teacher (the one person who has ever called them), which makes the issue take two and a half weeks to resolve instead of one, because they had to go in the side door instead of straight to the person who actually handles transportation concerns. A Hatian Creole speaking parent is less likely to show up at family engagement events when they only ever get to speak to one person at the school instead of the five or six that an English-speaking parent meets in the very first week; they don't feel part of the community, so ... why would they come? But wait, doesn't hiring strategically solve that? Let's return to those first Way #1 and Way #2. There are obvious problems with the first way (no one provides any language access for families): families are denied access to information, programming, and people. It's bad for families. It's bad for kids. It is also illegal under the Civil Rights Act. The good news is that there is a pathway forward for those schools, and they can absolutely improve if they choose to prioritize it. The problems with the second way (there are tools and strategic hires to handle communication) are less obvious, in particular to everyone who is not one of those strategic hires. That actually makes it harder for schools to get unstuck from Way #2 than it is for schools to get out of Way #1: there is a very small number of people who see the problems. Those people need investment from outside that group in order to make change. But first, let's unpick why this second way is not good. I often liken school and district communications to a rain storm: there are drops falling everywhere all the time. Every week there are texts, emails, e-newsletters, print newsletters, permission slips, half slips, notification letters, phone calls, meetings, notices of meeting, conferences, conference sign-up forms (and texts to share the sign-up forms), flyers, family engagement events, and on and on and on. For each of those communications, the decisions being made about them and the people owning them are in all different spaces: the front office, the district office, a grade level meeting, an admin meeting, a conversation in the hallway or next to the copier, a staff meeting, a family engagement professional development session, etc. Tasking one or a small group of strategic hires with all of multilingual communication is like trying to catch all the drops in a rainstorm through a funnel. Spoiler alert: not all the drops are going to make it. In fact, most of the drops won't. Communication, and therefore access to information, programming, and people is now inequitable. And this also is illegal under the Civil Rights Act. Take that metaphor in reverse: if families are only ever allowed to be in contact with one person (I say "allowed" not because this is an actual school policy, but the way practices are set up, this is the outcome) -- that is not inclusive. It doesn't create access to people. And remember, access to people is community and also access to life-trajectory-changing conversations and relationships. To look at some examples of common occurrences when a school is operating in the second way:
Have I painted a full picture? The problem is so extensive and insidious, it is really hard to feel I have done it justice. A person is not a system. Suffice to say that a person is not a system. A tool is also not a system. If you were to ask your school, "What is your system for ensuring multilingual communication with families?" and their answer is a tool or a person or role, they are likely stuck in the second way, and there are likely inequities are likely hidden everywhere, like chewed gum under desks, like cell phones in deep pockets. A system is a system ... of which tools and people form a part. The truth is that parents have a right to speak to anyone in the building, and family relationships are everyone's job, just like for English-speaking families. So that brings us to the Third Way. The Third Way
The Third Way is where translation tools are employed, bilingual staff and/or family liaisons are hired, AND multilingual communication and relationships with multilingual families are viewed as a universally shared responsibility. So how do you move a school from Way #1 and/or Way #2 into the Third Way? That became the central question of my five years founding and building out the English Learner department for my district. When I started, we had nothing. Some campuses were operating in the second way and some in the first. My first task was to find and employ the tools and resources: a telephonic interpreter service, a local interpreter agency, clarity on how our e-communications platforms would translate. (We didn't have the option for me to hire directly at the time, so I was the bilingual staff that was hired strategically). Once I had the tools and resources, my task was to train staff on when and how to use them. Once I had trained staff on when and how to use them, my task became how to get people to actually use them and not just continue to use me as a funnel as had always been the case. In other words, my task was how to move all our schools out of the first and second ways and into the Third Way. This became my hill to die on. The effort took four years to accomplish, but we finally got there. We didn't achieve perfection, but we did climb the mountain and enjoy the view from the top. Others became invested in our systems and began to identify as educators who provide equal access for multilingual families. Our language access became a highlight, a source of strength. In a DEI session, a staff member I had never spoken with before named our provision of interpreters for families as a DEI strength of our district. It seems so basic, and yet that never would have happened before. In previous years, if people were thinking about multilingual families in the context of DEI, they would have said, "Anne helps us communicate! Bravo, Anne!" In this scenario, this woman knew nothing of me and never asked me to communicate anything for her. All she knew was our system, and she worked the system. Families she provided programming for had access, and I had no direct role to play other than managing the system. How to Move into the Third Way Here is a very high level summary of the steps that I now recommend, in retrospect: 1. Research the tools and resources available to you in each of these areas: text and email translation, document translation, telephonic interpretation, in-person and virtual interpretation. 2. Choose your tools in each area. 3. Create a process by which staff, as easily and simply as possible, are able to access each tool. Said process should also build in transparency; someone should be able to see at any point in time, which campuses/teams are using the tools and how much. 4. Interview families about their experience with school communication, and take notes verbatim (yes, verbatim). 5. Look for trends in the family experience and check whether your tools and processes address them. 6. Interview a variety of staff about their experience communicating (or not) with multilingual families. 7. Look for trends in staff interviews and anticipate how to proactively address their concerns in PD. 6. Get PD time in front of all staff during the summer or close to BOY. 7. Write your PD on when and how to use your tools and resources. Use your most compelling parent quotes from those interviews and write up anonymous case studies from real family experiences to invest staff viscerally in the why. Include actual practice using every single tool during PD time (not after). 8. Launch an accountability cycle by which usage of the system is audited regularly (I recommend quarterly), and those metrics are shared with campus and team leaders in order to collaboratively improve quarter after quarter. 9. Lead two mini-PD refreshers per year (before parent-teacher conferences) until your schools become proficient at this. I recognize those steps are VERY high level and lack a lot of detail. It is probably not very unsatisfying for the person who is ready to tackle this issue at their school/district and has a ton of questions because they have already tried many of these steps before. To you, I apologize. I have more to share, but it is too much for a blog post. Because of this, I realized recently that I need to write these steps in a book -- like, a little user manual that a district or school leader can pick up and use to move their district out of the first or second way and into the Third Way. I'm working on it now. Any takers? If you'd like to know when my book is ready and available for purchase, click here I'll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, good luck to you, and get in touch!
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Anne TruranI taught, coached, taught again, founded an ELL program and taught and coached some more. From the border to central Texas to the Midwest. Now I work with schools to improve communication and connection with multilingual families. Archives
May 2024
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