Liaison Helps Bridge Cultural Gap

Mandy Ritok, Marshallese liaison for the Springdale School District, talks Wednesday with Ancelitha Abon, 13, an eighth-grader at Southwest Junior High School. Ritok works with Marshallese students to help with interpretation with them, their families and the school. Ritok said she really enjoys what she does and the students teach her as much as she teaches them.
Mandy Ritok, Marshallese liaison for the Springdale School District, talks Wednesday with Ancelitha Abon, 13, an eighth-grader at Southwest Junior High School. Ritok works with Marshallese students to help with interpretation with them, their families and the school. Ritok said she really enjoys what she does and the students teach her as much as she teaches them.

— A new Southwest Junior High School employee is improving the school’s relationship with its Marshallese families, administrators said.

At A Glance

Marshallese Liaison

The liaison at Southwest Junior High School has several duties, including:

-Making contact with every student to discern his or her needs and how the school can help with them.

-Contact parents about students’ grades and attendance.

-Maintain an accurate database of phone numbers and addresses of Marshallese families.

-Be involved in discipline cases by working with administrators and contacting parents.

-Work with kids and parents on paying fees and fines.

-Assist with communication.

-Translate conferences between school and families.

Source: Southwest Junior High School

Mandy Ritok was hired last month to serve as a liaison between the school and the Marshallese community. She speaks both English and Marshallese.

“She hadn’t been here 10 minutes and she made a huge impact,” said Brice Wagner, Southwest’s principal. “We happened to have someone in the nurse’s station we were having difficulty communicating with, and (Ritok) was right there.”

Southwest has 108 Marshallese students, about 11 percent of the school’s total enrollment. Many of the students, as well as their parents, struggle with English. The language barrier complicates the students’ education and their parents’ understanding of how the schools operate.

Ritok’s job is to improve communication between the school and families and to help the Marshallese students with their studies when necessary.

For example, Ritok said, she recently sat with several students during their English class to help them with the teacher’s lesson on poetry. After translating the poetry for them, she said they had a better understanding of it.

The liaison’s job appealed to her because of her desire to help the Marshallese do well in school and pursue higher education.

“I know that I’ve helped somebody. That’s what I enjoy the most about it,” Ritok said.

One of the biggest challenges of the job is keeping track of Marshallese families’ addresses and phone numbers, Ritok said.

Southwest had a Marshallese liaison last school year, but the School District transferred her to Springdale High early this school year, Wagner said. Southwest used Title 1 money to hire Ritok at a base salary of $11,600, with another $2,400 in benefits, according to Assistant Principal Kim Lewis.

Title 1 is a federal funding program for high-poverty schools to help students who are behind academically or at risk of falling behind. Southwest became a Title 1 school this school year.

Wagner said he was pleased by the pool of candidates he had for the liaison’s job.

“One thing that was important was the very good English as well as being able to speak Marshallese,” he said. “I was pleased (Ritok) had a college degree. She really has a great command of the English language.”

Ritok, a native of the Marshall Islands, first came to the United States in 1994. She earned a degree in political science from the University of St. Mary in Leavenworth, Kan. She moved to Springdale and briefly worked for the School District before moving back to the Marshall Islands, where she worked for that nation’s government for about seven years.

She briefly lived in Hawaii before moving to Washington state, where she worked as a residential adviser for Cascades Job Corps, helping young people find jobs.

She moved back to Springdale in March to be closer to family. She has three boys, all students at Bayyari Elementary, and two adopted twin daughters who work at Cargill.

Jacob Hayward, a Southwest assistant principal, called Ritok “a tremendous asset” to the school.

“She and I have had several conversations about how can we bridge that cultural gap in the district,” Hayward said.

The important thing is to let Marshallese parents know how seriously the schools take their children’s education, he said.

“She can help relay that message in ways we never could,” Hayward said.

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