It’s Hispanic Heritiage & Awareness Month ! As I acknowledge, educate, and embrace this culture, I want public schools to do more. I want public schools to stop doing what we do best when it comes to cultural awareness months which is celebrate with foods and dance.
I want us to actually teach, embrace, and include these cultures in our day to day operational systems and listen to the parent advocates who tell us how to better serve their community, especially our non-English speaking families.
Bilingual teachers aren’t just a dream but a reality!
I’m highlighting a call to action for parents, not just parents of non-English speaking students, to challenge school districts to train, hire, and support more teachers who are bilingual.
To be honest, school districts need to go beyond simply having a translator at parent district meetings, board meetings, and maybe parent conferences at the school.
Even beyond the U.S. Department of Education data, we know what works for our students, and we should embrace what parents are telling us matters.
Representation matters.
Cultural diversity matters.
Equity matters.
Having taught special education, I worked with many parents whose first language wasn’t English. And yes, in many schools, Spanish speaking families dominate the students who are identified as English learners. At times, we get caught up in systematic ways of thinking about “bilingualism.” If we are going to truly celebrate Hispanic Heritage & Awareness Month, then let’s do what we know needs to be done and support school districts with training and hiring more bilingual teachers, especially Spanish speaking ones.
Parents, Hispanic Heritage & Awareness Month is the perfect time to advocate for this support for teacher and students.