Tony Hughes is currently a solution specialist with ThomasNet and was a member of the Illinois chapter of the National School Public Relations Association (INSPRA) board when he worked for VisionFriendly.com, a website design and management company based in Yorkville.
With English Language Learner (ELL) populations growing across the state, it's more challenging for school districts to connect with an increasingly diverse audience.
Rafael Segarra's work load has doubled in the last year. Segarra serves as director of ELL/Dual Language Services in Oswego CUSD 308, a district of about 12,000 students with 20 schools in the suburbs west of Chicago.
District 308 is home to some 20 or more unique ethnic groups. While the majority of ELL students are Hispanic, the district also contains large populations of Polish, Eastern European and Middle Eastern families.
One of the most successful programs Segarra has implemented is a Hispanic PTA for Spanish-speaking students and their families.
"The biggest challenge we face is support for education in the home," Segarra said. "The model for education is very different in the U.S. as compared to Mexico and other countries.
"We try to raise parents' awareness of their children's school activities, to get them to participate at home with reading and writing activities, and invite them to school-sponsored functions to help them feel more comfortable in the U.S. school system."
Because many parents cannot attend during the week, District 308 also opens one of its schools — babysitting included — in an effort to build the relationship between the district and the family. Segarra said he's also experimenting with activities before and after school and is even considering summer school to reach out to Hispanic families.
Segarra has recruited several parents to serve on the PTA council and said his efforts are paying off. "Before, there was a kind of disconnect that families felt with their children's schools," he said.
Making parents part of the process helps form a connection between families and the schools, and more importantly, between parents and their children's school activities.
Being proactive
Martha Garcia-Tappa echoes Segarra's ideas. As communications coordinator for Moline USD 40, Garcia-Tappa oversees communications to the families of more than 7,300 students on the Illinois/Iowa border in western Illinois. The district is home to ELL families who speak Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, Bosnian, French, Indian and African dialects. She estimates more than 18 percent of the student population comes from Spanish-speaking homes.
With so much information coming out of her office — on everything from swine flu to district-level strategic plans — Garcia-Tappa said it's a challenge to keep her increasingly diverse community informed. However, the district is very proactive when it comes to communicating with the community.
In the recent swine flu outbreak, she said, "we needed to send a clear message about what we're doing to protect community — to prevent miscommunication and misunderstanding."
Like Segarra, Garcia-Tappa relies on PTA/PTO organizations to help ELL families understand how the educational system works and make them more active participants in the process. "In Mexico," she said, "it's not uncommon to take kids out of school for two months at a time. In the U.S., that's a lot of school for a student to miss."
PTO/PTA groups help explain the differences between educational systems and directly involve parents and families in their children's education.
Strengthening ties
To strengthen ties with the larger community, some Illinois districts also participate in neighborhood-based programs to reach out to ELL families where they live and work. Garcia-Tappa said several families participate in Community Oriented Policing (COP) programs that build a sense of unity and openness in the community. Community-based programs help families understand the larger context of the school system and help them feel more comfortable as a valued member of that system.
"Families are really responsive after we reach out to them," Garcia-Tappa said. "They want to be involved, it's up to us to explain how the system works and to give them opportunities to participate more."
Three times a year, Garcia-Tappa sends a newsletter to families, residents and businesses in and around Moline and the Coal Valley region. The newsletters cover topics from curriculum updates to community programs to PTA/PTO events.
Like the district's website, brochures on registration, health policies and school policies and procedures have been translated into Spanish. She has seen an increase in e-mail and web traffic from ELL families throughout the district. "Even if families don't have Internet at home," she said, "they access the website from libraries and other locations. Our website has become a key source of communication with our Spanish-speaking families."
Web resources
While ELL families use the Internet to learn about their children's education, education professionals are using the Internet to help strengthen ELL programs. One of the resources Segarra and other bilingual teachers rely heavily on is the Illinois Resource Center (IRC), or simply, "the Center," said Segarra.
The IRC, based in Arlington Heights, provides assistance to teachers and administrators serving linguistically and culturally diverse students throughout Illinois. The IRC offers print and online resources, professional development courses, training and technical support, conferences, workshops and events throughout the year to help education professionals work more effectively with ELL populations.
While school district communications professionals are seeing signs of progress, some administrators see a real need for more internal resources in the front office and in the classroom. Garcia-Tappa said her district employs more than 30 bilingual teachers, office staff and district-wide translators to facilitate effective communications between the district and its students and families. But with the rate of ELL population growth, it's sometimes difficult to keep up with demand, a sentiment shared by Rafael Segarra.
"There's really a shortage of quality, qualified bilingual teachers and support staff," Segarra said. "It's one thing to be bilingual, it's another to be a good teacher and communicator."
Segarra said District 308 has begun recruiting staff from as far away as Puerto Rico and Spain. "It's an ever-challenging situation," he said, "working to build external communications with ELL families and at the same time, providing the internal resources and tools to help ELL students."