Create a welcoming environment for families of linguistically diverse special education students

While the Vogel-Campbell School District gets Spanish translation services relatively quickly and has to offer free interpretation to all non-English speaking parents, she said it could take up to a month to coordinate an interpreter for the district’s less spoken languages. Vogel-Campbell suggested that teachers make small efforts throughout the school year to communicate with parents in their preferred language. For example, teachers can introduce themselves or greet the family in their native language, even if the rest of the meeting relies on an interpreter. Vogel-Campbell said doing so expresses respect and desire to connect with these parents. She urged teachers to realize that even if parents do not understand the dominant language spoken by a teacher, “that does not mean that they are not a source of knowledge and information for their students.”

Both Jarvey and Simpson are used regularly google translator To communicate with non-English speaking parents. Jarvey, whose class consists of nine kindergarten through third-grade students with moderate to severe disabilities, tries to translate all of his Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) using Google Translate. He said translating them himself for parents is often faster than sending them across the district for translation, which he said can take up to two weeks to complete. Month-long waits for IEP translations, as well as poor translations, are common throughout CaliforniaAccording to the EdSource website.

The longer the IEP document is waited, the longer the process of obtaining parental consent, signing and implementation will take, Jarvey said. “We want there to be a quick turnaround for approval and implementation, because the longer it takes for parental approval, the less time the child has to achieve the goals,” he said. Without an IEP signed by a parent, the teacher must continue the curriculum based on the most recently signed IEP, which may be up to a year out of date. The sooner special education teachers can sit down with parents with an agreed-upon IEP, the less likely students will fall behind on curriculum goals whether those are academic or functional life skills.

Communicate effectively with families

Garvey and Simpson implemented similar strategies to bridge the communication gap between themselves and their students’ parents. Simpson, who works with middle school students, uses Google Translate to send and receive text messages and emails to and from parents. His classroom consists of English- and Spanish-speaking families. He tells parents that he has no problem with translation on his part and allows them to take the lead on what language to use.

Jarvey also uses Google Translate as much as he can to communicate with parents of his students who may speak a primary language at home other than English. Over the years, he has worked with families who speak Khmer, Cambodian, Japanese and Spanish.

By continuing to build those relationships with parents, Simpson approaches IEP meetings asking how he can foster authentic connection with the family to solidify the teacher-parent partnership. He also texts or calls parents every other day with positive news about their students and encourages parents to praise their children. If a student has an obstacle to overcome, Simpson makes sure to work with parents to come up with a redirection or constructive solution to the problem.

Parents’ deference to teachers’ ideas may be interpreted by teachers as disengagement, but in her book, Vogel-Campbell highlights a variety of non-Western cultural beliefs that may shape parents’ interactions with the school system. She said it’s important to recognize those differences and emphasize ways parents can advocate for their children in the American education system. Garvey, who often speaks with parents new to the IEP process, makes sure of that Create lasting relationships with parents Hopefully they will continue to advocate for their children after they leave his classroom. In his weekly communications house, he offers a variety of messaging methods from traditional email to smiley-face or frowny-face text messages. Although he said it may take some trial and error, Jarvi is working to adapt his communications to a parent’s bandwidth and overcome any challenges.

Translation resources and multilingual services for families

Vogel-Campbell also shared some of the resources her district uses to communicate with families who speak different languages. One is Parents’ yard, a communication tool designed for use in K-12 education and used by teachers, administrators, and district administrators to translate notes into more than 100 languages. Some teachers in the Vogel-Campbell district also use it He remembersan educational communications platform with two-way text message translation capabilities.