Some of the school committee candidates mentioned language being a barrier to parental involvement. Unfortunately, many of us know this has been an ongoing issue for years at LPS. If you recall, three complaints, including one from me, were filed against LPS with the Office for Civil Rights back in 2013. I have had numerous conversations with the OCR attorney assigned to the case. Remember, Dr. Latham signed a resolution agreement with the OCR in April 2013 agreeing to take specific short-term and long-term actions to resolve the communication issues. Among these was the development and implementation of a procedure for access to translation and interpretation services. This procedure was required to include the following: 1) How LEP parents will be identified and notified, upon enrollment and at the beginning of every school year thereafter, about their right to free language sevices. 2) How district staff, teachers, and administrators will be able to find out which parents are LEP and need free language assistance services. 3) How the district will provide oral interpretation and written translation and if the procedure is different for different languages, the procedure must describe the differences. 4) How the district will ensure that interpreters and translators are qualified and trained on the role of an interpreter and translator, the ethics of interpreting and translating, and the need to maintain confidentiality. 5) How the district will periodically train all district administrators, teachers, and school staff who have contact with parents on the district's policies and procedures for providing free language assistance services. 6) How the district will track the use of interpreters and translators. 7) How the district will periodically evaluate its system for providing free language assistance and determine whether changes should be made. Once completed, the district was required to post it to the district website and parent information center. Again, this was over 2 years ago and to my knowledge, no such procedure exists and is not posted anywhere. Have you heard of any or seen it anywhere? According to this agreement signed by Dr. Latham, "the district understands and acknowledges that the OCR may initiate administrative enforcement or judicial proceedings to enforce the specific terms and obligations of this agreement". To my knowledge, the school committee has not mentioned this issue or this resolution agreement during any meeting that has taken place since Dr. Latham signed it. It appears they have not ensured the district followed and upheld the agreement. It also appears that the OCR has not upheld their end of the agreement either. It has been over 2 years, yet I have not heard of any administrative or judicial proceedings taken against LPS, have you? Perhaps a phone call and email to the OCR checking on the status of this issue is in order?
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