GIVING PARENTS A MEANINGFUL ROLE IN SCHOOL, making them feel welcome, and keeping them informed are tough enough when all players share the same language and culture. But what if parents speak a different language than school staff? What if getting involved in their child's school would be considered inappropriate meddling in their native country? What if they haven't set foot in a school since third grade and feel fearful and intimidated about approaching teachers or administrators?
These are the linguistic and cultural hurdles that Sunnyside School District recently set out to jump. In the past decade, Hispanic enrollment at this district near Yakima in the heart of Washington's fruit-growing region swelled from less than half to almost three-quarters of total enrollment. With funding from both private and public sources, the district has launched several programs to bring the rising population of Hispanic parents into the schools and into the educational lives of their children.
One project--Parent Effective Leadership Training (PELT), modeled after a program developed for urban Black parents--provides in-home support for literacy development and trains parents in school and community leadership. Through the program's literacy piece, "Backpack Literacy," a school staff member visits homes where young children live, toting in a knapsack a tape recorder and a Spanish-language book in both print and audio versions. An English version of the book is introduced the following week. The idea, says Sunnyside's parent involvement coordinator Sara Vega-Evans, is for parents to read with their kids and for the parent and child to learn language and literacy skills together.
The leadership piece of PELT is a six-week training program conducted in the parents' language that covers leadership skills; avenues for parental involvement in school; stages of child development; communication differences between U.S. and Latin cultures; the structure and chain of command in the U.S. educational system; and goal setting. To graduate from the program, parents must finish all six weeks of training, plus attend a school board meeting and spend at least an hour volunteering in the schools. About 1,000 parents have taken part in the program since it began three years ago, and 75 parents have graduated and received a certificate of completion--a big boost for the self-esteem of these parents, many of whom have only a third-grade education or less, says Vega-Evans.
"Before PELT, we had a heck of a time getting parents involved in the schools," she notes. "They would say, ęBut I don't speak English. How can I be involved?' Now there are no more excuses."
One big barrier is the cultural difference between U.S. and Latin countries with regard to parents' proper role in formal education. "Once we send the child to school, the teacher becomes the father, the mother, the counselor, and everything else," says Vega-Evans of attitudes in her native El Salvador. PELT shows Hispanic parents that not only are they welcome in U.S. schools, but they also can be an important role model and helper for their child.
THERE HAVE BEEN A LOT OF SPIN-OFF BENEFITS, Vega-Evans says. The training has given many parents the confidence to go back to school and take GED and ESL classes. Some are taking free computer classes at the district. A parent support group to discuss personal issues has grown out of the training program. And several program graduates have been recruited for various advisory groups, including the state-level parent advisory council.
The state education department, which funded the PELT program through a state Readiness-to-Learn grant, is considering the project as a model for statewide implementation, says Vega-Evans, who is writing a training manual for facilitators.
ANOTHER INNOVATION IN THE SUNNYSIDE DISTRICT came out of Washington Elementary School, a K-2 school whose Hispanic enrollment is approaching 80 percent. Supported by a project of the Rural Clearinghouse for Lifelong Education and Development called EMPIRE (Exemplary Multicultural Practices in Rural Schools), the school created a bilingual handbook that cuts across linguistic and cultural barriers to include and inform Spanish-speaking parents. Goals of the parent handbook are several:
"Many of our children are the children of settled migrants," notes Assistant Principal Diann Zavala. "More and more, our parents are coming in speaking only Spanish. For many of them, it's the first time they've been involved in the U.S. school system. We needed some form of communication--something to hand parents that would serve as a guide to the school."
The district's middle school and another elementary school have developed bilingual handbooks, too, and the district has produced a bilingual school calendar. The handbooks and calendar, says Zavala, are just one outcome of districtwide multicultural training aimed at getting away from the "tourist approach" to cultural awareness and moving instead toward deeper understanding, interaction, and communication.
Meeting the needs of Hispanic parents is, in turn, just one facet of a larger five-year districtwide strategic improvement plan, now in its fourth year.
Although Sunnyside is no longer participating in the EMPIRE project, 10 other Yakima Valley schools, along with Heritage College in Toppenish (see Growing Teachers), are involved in the project. Originally funded by the Ford Foundation, the project is now jointly funded by Heritage and participating schools. For more information, contact Bertha Ortega, Assistant Vice President for Community Relations at Heritage College, (509) 865-2244.
For further information on Sunnyside School District's programs for involving Hispanic parents, contact Sara Vega-Evans at (509) 837-0554.
--Lee Sherman Caudell
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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