Connecting parents and teachers

Ukrainian immigrant Ivanna Malko was glad to have an interpreter at her side Monday during her son’s parent-teacher conference at Whitman Elementary School.

With the help of Vera Puzankova, a Russian bilingual specialist for Spokane Public Schools, Malko learned that her fifth-grader, Paul Malko, writes well, struggles a little with science, and ran a mile in seven minutes.

While Paul speaks English fluently, his mother speaks very little.

“At home I only speak Ukraine,” Paul said.

The Malkos are among the families in Spokane schools whose first language is not English and who need help with translation during parent-teacher conferences, which began last week and continue this week.

There are 1,300 bilingual students in Spokane schools, speaking more than 44 languages, district officials said. Among those students are more than 900 still learning English.

Under federal law, the district must provide interpreters or other language help “to the extent practicable,” said Howard De Leeuw, director of English Language Development for Spokane schools.

With so many cultural backgrounds and languages, officials said it can be a challenge to provide bilingual specialists for each one-on-one parent-teacher conference. Without an interpreter, non-English-speaking parents may feel left out of important decisions.

“No one knows the child better than the parent,” said De Leeuw. “It’s very difficult if the parent can’t truly express concerns in their own language.”

District interpreters, called bilingual specialists, work the twice-yearly parent conferences and help students throughout the school year. According to the recommended budget for the 2006-07 school years, the district will receive just over $900,000 in transitional bilingual and limited English proficiency funds from the state and federal governments, and will spend about $2.4 million.

This year the district subscribed to a telephone service that connects teachers with interpreters via teleconference, so teachers can tap into 170 languages. The state pays for the subscription, but the district pays for calls, at $1.10 a minute.

More often, the district seeks out bilingual individuals who may be able to speak uncommon dialects such as Chuukese, a language from Micronesia, or Marshallese, of the Marshall Islands.

One Marshallese language specialist now serves more than 90 children in Spokane schools, district officials said. That compares with 15 Russian-speaking bilingual specialists.

There are also small numbers of refugees and immigrants who speak languages including Azerbaijani; Krahn, a dialect from Liberia; and Kirghiz, the language of Kyrgyzstan.

In rare cases, family members bring their own interpreters – usually family or friends, though that is discouraged.

The district would rather have someone translating who understands education and can break down complex topics, such as the state standardized test known as the WASL, said Amy Berube, an English language development teacher at Whitman, who helps organize dozens of bilingual parent-teacher conferences twice each year.

“Academic language is so much different than social language,” Berube said.

Schools also try to learn more about different cultures and what life was like in their native countries.

“We need to be sensitive to their culture, where they are coming from, and we need to help them understand the expectations from the American culture as well,” said Linda Unseth, Northwest regional director of World Relief, a network of church-based groups that helps resettle refugees from around the world. The group sometimes helps locate interpreters for schools.

“It’s empowering for the parent when they can express what they are thinking in their own language,” De Leeuw said.