KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – This weekend, November 9-10, a new, unique school resource will be made available to families whose first language is Spanish.
This new guide will help them understand school choice programs in private, public, and charter schools preschool – 12th grade.
These three groups worked together to translate and generate the guide with information especially important for students like Susana Elizarraraz. Susana has unique insight as a bilingual parent of a child with special needs and a teacher for 6 years.
“As a parent coming in with the perspective of the whirlwind it has been to find an education for my child, the fact that my voice is being heard and saying, ‘Hey, we need to add a section where our rights are written in a language that is easily understandable.” , not just language, but eliminating that jargon that is sometimes difficult to understand,” she said.
It took six months to translate the guide.
Director of Digital Experiences at Revolución Educativa Kansas City (RevED KC) and Latinx Education Collaborative Ivan Ramirez was part of that team and said the guide empowers families.
“What we do is try to explain the different programs available, educational programs, arts programs and more. From there, parents have the knowledge to make the best decisions for their children.”
Students often have to be translators for their parents and navigating the educational jargon from Spanish to English can be difficult.
New this year is a ‘Know Your Rights’ section to ease the pressure on children and their families. The section informs parents of available translation services at parent-teacher conferences and other gatherings.
“Our schools are always looking at the social well-being of our students, but often families do not know or understand all of their rights in general, let alone within the school system,” said Director of School Navigation, Show Me KC Schools, Danielle Dispenza. “It would be completely unreasonable to expect a student to know that their parents have rights.”
The guide will be available at the Annual City School Fair this Saturday, November 9 from 10am – 1pm at the Central Library Branch in downtown Kansas City. Parking is free.
For those who cannot attend in person, thousands of copies will be distributed at Kansas City Public School branches, Parks and Rec locations, as well as area grocery stores.
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