He helps immigrant parents communicate with English-speaking teachers and district officials and ensures that parents have an opportunity to be heard. Students in the Syracuse City School District speak more than 70 different languages and four of the most common among them are Nepali, Karen, Somali, and Arabic. It is not enough to get these immigrant parents to school events; teachers need to have one-on-one meetings that are documented and tracked in each student’s file. And immigrant parents who speak even the most common languages argue they can’t get the services they’re entitled to. Without language services, non-English-speaking parents are considered to be blocked from equal access to school information and resources.

Source: Huffington Post July 02, 2016 13:19 UTC