Nicole Raz
WMAL
WASHINGTON (WMAL) — Amid pleading with the Governor for more state funding, and tackling a long list of agenda items, the Montgomery County School Board will also be focusing on Hispanic and Latino parent outreach.
“Our Latino population is the fastest growing segment of our school-aged population,” said School Board President Patricia O’Neill. “We need to outreach better to support parents so they have all the information that they need to help support their students.”
State Del.Ana Sol Gutierrez says it’s about time the school system began prioritizing Hispanic families.
“Montgomery County is no longer the primarily monolingual, white, school that it was when I went here. It is now a rich diversity of the United Nations and we need to change the way that we do business, the way we educate, who we hire, how we support, what parents we need to support,” Gutierrez told WMAL.
In efforts to further outreach, the School Board launched a revamped Spanish website with Spanish videos, and created a Spanish Facebook page as well as an app.
“It’s good to have an app, and it’s good to have some outreach, but it’s not enough,” Gutierrez said, especially because many Latino and Hispanic parents don’t have access to computers.
She suggested that schools start with making more mindful hiring decisions to ensure that students feel they can relate to adults in their schools.
“Many of our schools that have high, high Latino populations don’t even have a Spanish speaking staff–like a secretary,” she said.
O’Neill said she agrees the School Board needs to do more; she said she’s been working with the Latino Parent organization over the summer.
“We have a Latino Parent Advisory Committee, which will become advisory to the Superintendent,” she said.
Enrollment numbers for MCPS’ 2015-2016 school year won’t come out until October, but there have been year over year increases in Latino and Hispanic students for the past fifteen years. In the 2014-2015 school year White students accounted for 31 percent of the student body, followed by Hispanic and Latino students (28.5 percent), and Black or African American (21.5 percent) students, and then Asian students (14.2 percent).
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