Mark Byrne
Language Access Consultant at PGLS
More than 50 years of research from the U.S. Department of Education shows the irreplaceable impact of family engagement on student achievement. From higher grades and test scores to increased teacher morale and graduation rates, K-12 schools benefit from investments in family engagement.
Considering that English-learner (EL) students traditionally lag behind their peers’ academic performance, family engagement offers a bridge to better outcomes. However, most EL students have parents or caregivers who do not speak English fluently. Building and sustaining these relationships requires a strategic approach to generate measurable results.
Whether you are noticing an increase in EL students in your district or are considering how to improve outcomes for your existing EL students, family engagement must play a central role. While bridging the gap between languages and cultures can be daunting, a comprehensive K-12 language access plan identifies the necessary structure and resources to engage effectively with multilingual families.
Do you need help advocating for an increase in language access planning and resources in your district? We’ve rounded up the most common language access-related challenges facing K-12 schools today and paired them with solutions that are time-tested and supported by data.
Challenge: Addressing Language Barriers between Teachers and Multilingual Parents/Caregivers
The majority of EL students come from homes with limited English proficiency. Without interventions, it is much more difficult to engage with their families about academic needs. This leaves EL students vulnerable to the adverse effects of minimal familial support, which will not help them catch up with their native English-speaking peers, who benefit from academic support at home. Also, when announcements and events are released only in English, multilingual families are excluded from socially integrating into the school community.
No matter what language is spoken at home, most parents are interested in tracking their students’ academic progress and working with teachers to support learning outcomes. Parents know their children are more likely to show better attendance, grades, and social development if they’re involved. The challenge facing K-12 schools is tackling the language and cultural barriers between them.
Solution: Factor Family Engagement into Your Interpreting and Translation Budget
To improve engagement, consider how and where schools communicate with families. Which conversations, resources, and events can lead to the greatest impact?
Parent meetings are among the most important, high-touch opportunities to address student academic needs, so this should be one of your top priorities. If employing an on-site linguist is not an option, virtual remote interpretation is a cost-effective alternative that allows for greater flexibility and language variance. Creating a system for submitting interpreter requests in advance can help bring down costs further.
Next, official materials, such as handbooks, codes of conduct, and other essential information, should be made available in the languages spoken at home by families. Considering some of these resources are often perennial, with minor year-over-year updates, this investment can be of value for years to come.
Challenge: Ensuring EL Students with Special Needs Are Accommodated
EL students with special needs deserve additional attention to help ensure they receive adequate accommodations at school and support at home. Parents may lack the financial resources to help their children thrive inside and outside the classroom. Transparent communication with them is imperative and can significantly improve the students’ quality of life.
Special education involves a significant amount of industry jargon, hindering clear communication with people who do not speak English fluently. Parents may find it difficult to navigate the system, especially multilingual parents of Deaf or hard-of-hearing students and can often be left feeling excluded and frustrated.
Solution: Language Access Planning for Students with IEP and 504 Plans
In these cases, the IEP and 504 coordinators and language access coordinators need to team up. Language access planning must be inclusive of students with disabilities or special needs. Strategically considering this student population will allow educators, paraeducators, and coordinators to provide the appropriate accommodations and make informed decisions around budgets.
Since sensitive conversations, such as 504 and IEP planning sessions, chart a definitive path forward for EL students, parental involvement in the decision-making process is critical. Interpreters must be provided for these conversations to comply with Title VI non-discrimination requirements, whether for spoken language or ASL interpreting. Beyond compliance, interpreters provide much-needed precision and assurance when the stakes are high, enhancing trust in parent-teacher relationships.
Challenge: Facing the Budget Conversation
If you’re tasked with family engagement and language access and simultaneously concerned about how to advocate for your budget, you’re not alone. It may sound simple, but framing the ask correctly is important. The administration’s job is to allocate spending to efforts that will be compliant, efficient, and beneficial to students. Your job is to help them understand why language access needs to be a priority line item.
Solution: Align Your Ask with Data
As an advocate for EL students and families, you can help the administration see how family engagement enriches students’ academic experiences and builds trust with the community.
The best approach to the budget conversation is to lead with data. Connect the dots between language access and family engagement, which they may (or may not) already know supports better student outcomes, test scores, teacher retention, and other key metrics.
Also, conclude with data. Demonstrate how your investment will lead to measurable outcomes aligning with your district’s priorities. Overall, budget decision-makers should walk away from your conversation understanding that in more ways than one, getting multilingual families more involved is a win for everyone.
Challenge: Inconsistent Implementation of Existing Language Access Resources
Are you noticing inconsistencies across how different faculty members deploy language access resources? This is yet another common challenge. Between the long-term teachers with routines that are not easily disrupted, newer staff members still learning the ropes, or others who remain skeptical, uneven implementation of language access could allow EL students and families to slip through the cracks. This is especially disheartening after working hard to obtain budget and resources.
Solution: Schoolwide K-12 Language Access Planning and Training
When training faculty on how and when to deploy language access, give them a purpose to hold onto—and focus their attention on the positive impacts. Sometimes, folks need a “why” answer before embracing change. This might seem simple, but it goes a long way toward turning skeptics into champions of language access.
Partner with the expert PGLS team for K-12 language access planning and implementation. Learn more here and get in touch.