An Evening with ESL Parents: A Framework for an Orientation Program

Introduction

Schools in large cities and surrounding suburbs are seeing an increase in enrollment of language minority students. This increasing cultural and linguistic diversity challenges the school administrators to involve immigrant parents who are unfamiliar with the American school milieu. Parents from linguistic and racial minority cultures and communities often view their role and the school’s role in educating their children differently mainly because school traditions and customs in their native country vary greatly from those in American schools. As a result, families might rarely visit the school, meet teachers, or participate in school events. School administrators, teachers, and staff can strengthen communication with immigrant families to promote and support parent involvement and student achievement.

Rationale

The challenge for many schools that have traditionally not enrolled many immigrant students and are not faced with larger numbers of them must now find ways to strengthen communication and forge partnerships with parents from diverse backgrounds. In the era of No Child Left Behind (2001), school leaders are facing serious concerns about academic achievement of students in this subgroup. With an ever increasing diverse student population, schools need to commit to working with racial, linguistic, and cultural minority parents to familiarize them with school procedures and policies.

If schools leaders that wish to be successful in working with students, parents, and the community of their culturally diverse population, they must be willing to rethink some of their current practices in order to successfully communicate with these stakeholders. Success in working with this group involves a commitment to meeting the needs of immigrant families and helping them to understand the school’s academic expectations and the belief that the school wants their children to succeed – from passing the required standardized tests to receiving enough credits to graduate from high school. Principals can play an active role by seeing themselves as advocates for change who articulate feelings of caring about students, parents, and the community. A principal who works affectively with migrant parents understands the importance of building relationships by forging partnerships with them and their communities. (Grant & Wong, 2004).

Steps to Opening Communication with English as a Second Language Parents

The key to beginning to open the lines of communication is to decide on the school’s priorities when it comes to ESL students and their parents. The principal plays a key role in many ways by setting school-wide goals that establish, as a priority, the achievement of English –language learners, provide ongoing directions and monitoring of curricular and instructional improvement efforts, and promote a good physical and social environment. To accomplish these, there must be a strong interest in parental involvement and collaboration. The administrators should stress the recruitment of racial, linguistic, and cultural minority parents and emphasize the importance of creating a welcoming environment. One way to begin is to plan one or more parent evening meetings to create an open dialogue between the school and the administration.

The following seven steps can help facilitate the first meeting:

Determine a Plan and Desired Outcomes:

Initiative and support of school leaders is the key to success of the initial parent orientation/information night. The administration along with ESL staff will need to identify the resources needed to support such an event and set realistic goals within the scope and capabilities of the school. This will ensure the program’s success. Such goals could include a list of school and division-wide personnel who can answer questions about required courses, transportation, school rules, and parent-teacher conferences.

Identify the Families

Solicit the ESL teaching and guidance staff to determine if all immigrant parents will be invited or if you want to target those who are new to the program or who will be existing the ESL classes and are about to be enrolled in classes with the general population. Since both groups have different needs, the meeting for new immigrant parents could be held at a time when there is a large influx of students being enrolled, typically in the early Fall. As a general rule, students exit the ESL program in the spring; therefore, the meeting for these parents could take place at that time to help prepare them for what is to come. Another area to be identified is the language or ethnic group involved. Knowing this will help to determine the native language assistance needed.

Determine the Logistics:

The location for the initial meeting can take place in a neighborhood community center, home, or school. School leaders can use local resources to help sponsor the program, especially if funding is limited. Contacting the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, for example, could generate a partnership that would help provide resources for refreshments, translation, location, or monetary support for future meetings. Although having the program at the school can be comfortable for staff, holding the event in the community where many of the families reside can increase attendance and form a bond between the school and community. Determining the date will also depend on the availability of both division and community resources.

Plan and Implement General Marketing and Publicity

Use multiple means of communication to announce the program, such as flyers, information sheets at Back to School Night, school newsletter, letters mailed to parents, phone calls home, or face to face communication during school registration especially if the family is accompanied by a bilingual relative or community member. Handouts, letters, or flyers should be translated in one or two of the predominant native languages used by a majority of the families. Since many of the parents are non-English speakers and it might not be possible to have the notice translated in every language, keep the message simple. A flyer or publicity sheet could include a tear-off registration form to determine approximate interest and needs.

Recruit Division, Community, and Parent Resources

Begin by calling on the ESL division resources to assist you in providing translation of school documents and translators to assist parents in understanding speakers and asking questions. I also suggest that you call on local agencies to help, as well, especially if school resources are limited. Schools can form partnerships with community and faith-based organizations to engage them in providing resources. Contacting the Hispanic Chamber of Congress, for example could help provide translation services, employment information, and contacts with other families of similar backgrounds. Some businesses or churches might also be willing to provide a location near the predominant neighborhoods of these families. Other governmental resources can also be available to answer questions. Representatives from public health, counseling, transportation, and housing can assist the school division representatives in answering questions about specific school requirements, such as student academic support, guidance services, or adult English classes. If families require transportation to and from the school, the district’s transportation department could provide a school bus at specific central locations to pick up parents and transport them to and from the meeting location. If small children accompany the families, an area or nearby classroom can be set up to provide child care so that parents can concentrate their full attention on the purpose of the meeting. All resources utilized should agree to operate under a unified guiding philosophy that schools and families need broad-based support in order to educate their children.

Identify Information To Be Presented

A majority of the parents of immigrant students are unfamiliar with the workings of an American school. Therefore, school administrators and staff should begin with very basic information that is printed in English and translated to the language of a majority of the ESL students. These documents should include:

The program should be structured with an introduction of school and community personnel, an overview of the handouts, information and ideas about how to help students at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, a question and answer period, and an opportunity to talk individually with school and community members. In the interest of all attendees, it is important that the school administration keeps to the start and end time of the program. At the conclusion, thank all parents form coming and announce the next date for future meetings if it has been determined.

Feedback and Future Meetings

At the conclusion of the program or at a later date, survey the staff and community representatives to determine what was useful, what was not necessary, and suggestions for improvement. It would be ideal if the parents were also surveyed. The language barrier would make this difficult. Conducting a phone survey via the classroom teacher or lead teacher could be a beneficial source of anecdotal data.

A compilation of responses and their distribution to the planning committee can provide sources for discussion on continuation and repetition of the program. There benefits for establishing the connection between limited English-speaking parents and the school and community far outweigh the organizational and execution hurdles.

Recommendations

The key to the success of this type of program is publicity and preparation. Contacting immigrant parents and encouraging them to attend can be problematic. A way of obtaining a commitment is through personal contact with parents and constant reminders to students. A reservation form can give you an idea of possible attendees, but, because of work commitments, there is a possibility that only a few will attend. It is essential to clearly communicate to all ESL parents the purpose for meeting - their children’s academic success. To boost attendance, an open invitation to all immigrant parents, instead certain families, might help to encourage others who should attend. Additionally, as the immigrant community, businesses, churches, and other cultural groups find out the benefits of the program, the more likely parents will be willing to attend.

To eliminate frustration, organize and prepare well in advance. Solicit the help of the ESL staff to plan for possible parent questions and concerns. Meet with all contributing school staff, division-wide and community resources to create a plan and agree on a shared responsibility. Convening in advance will help clarify each group’s role and set the boundaries for non-school based organizations. All stakeholders should have input in the design of a program agenda to give everyone a chance to contribute.

There will be parents who cannot attend the program and those who enroll their children at a later date. These parents might inquire about future informational meetings. Assigning a school liaison to serve as a parent co-coordinator can provide parents with materials that were distributed at the first meeting. This staff member can also serve as the school contact for follow-up meetings and facilitate the creation of a support network involving the school, parents, and community resources. Once the home-school liaison is identified as a resource and demonstrates the same vision and concern as all stakeholders, he or she will be well equipped to reach out to these parents. He or she can invite them to become more involved in their children’s education and create another avenue for building understanding and trust.

Creating trust can bring with it additional requests from parents that will require the school leaders to examine and determine whether these requests should be honored or addressed. A common one is that of adult English classes for parents. Since the parents are familiar with the school environment and comfortable with the staff, they will want help from the school community for this service. Some school divisions and local schools with a large ESL population pay their ESL teachers additional money to provide classes or workshops in the evening. Some even provide childcare for those parents who request it. School administrators will have to decide if they want to provide this service at their own schools or refer the requesting parents to the division-wide adult education classes. Providing English classes is something that should be anticipated, and requires a planned response to the requests. If school leaders decide to provide the service, it is possible to find funding through Title III of No Child Left Behind (2001) to cover cost of salaries and building use.

Conclusion

Forming relationships with language minority parents can improve ESL student learning and help them make greater gains. When schools engage families in ways that improve student learning, parents feel supported and become involved at home and at school. When schools build partnerships with immigrant families that respond to their concerns and honor their cultural contributions, they are able to sustain connections that are aimed at improving student achievement. Schools, language minority parents, and their communities can organize to help schools and school districts make positive changes in students, practice, and resources. (Epstein, 1995).

Schools with the help of culturally diverse community groups can initiate contact and establish relationships with limited English speaking parents by implementing and considering the following:

Beginning with the framework described here is an attempt to form a partnership with ESL parents in order to meet the unique needs of language minority students. Good leadership, especially from principals, is critical to forging this bond. School leadership that adopts a proactive stance and makes the initial contact with these parents will be able to meet the needs of ESL families and form partnerships. Finally, school leaders should make it a priority to form a relationship with multilingual parents and communities. Tapping into their cultural richness and community resources can build bridges between the school and their communities for the purpose of student achievement.

Resources

Epstein, J. (1995). School/family/community partnerships. Phi Delta Kappan, 42, 701-712.

Grant, R.A. & Wong, S. D. (2004). Forging Multilingual Communities: School-based Strategies. Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education, 6(3), 17-23.

No Child Let Behind Act, 20 USC § 6301 (2001). Retrieved June 28, 2007, from http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/40.pdf.