BENTONVILLE -- The School District needs a full-time translator to serve the community's Spanish-speaking families better, according to administrators.
Janet Schwanhausser, the district's federal programs director, explained the need at the School Board's meeting last week. The board likely will vote on the matter at its next meeting Monday.
Meeting Information
School Board
The Bentonville School Board’s last meeting of 2014 will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Administration Building, 500 Tiger Blvd.
The additional staff member would not result in any extra cost to the district. That's because the district spends about $30,000 per year on a phone service it uses when it needs translation work done in any language, Schwanhausser said.
The district pays for that service by the minute, and Spanish is the foreign language most commonly used by district patrons. That service isn't always reliable and isn't the district's best option, Schwanhausser said.
"We can take less than what we're currently spending on that service and put that into one full-time person," Schwanhausser said.
That person would receive about $14 per hour, depending on the person's experience.
Besides providing in-person translation services, the employee would translate written material for parents.
Prompt translation service is also an issue when it comes to communicating with foreign-language speakers about individualized education plans. Those plans lay out specific goals and learning issues for each special-education student and are required under the law.
The district relies on its translation service or a clerk in its English as a second language department to translate those plans for families. But that can take weeks, if not months, and that's too long, Schwanhausser said.
"We've got a student who's receiving services, and the family doesn't understand what those services are," she said.
Bentonville has 1,116 students whose first language is Spanish, according to Schwanhausser. That's about 7 percent of the district's enrollment.
Grant Lightle, a board member, asked whether the employee's services would fill a 40-hour work week and whether that employee also could spend some time teaching.
That wouldn't be practical because the employee occasionally would have to be pulled out of class to provide translation services, Schwanhausser said.
"We thought about that," she said.
Michael Poore, superintendent, recalled one time when district officials got a call about an urgent need for a Spanish interpreter. When other options failed, they resorted to contacting one of their janitors to assist.
"We just don't have a good vehicle to support Spanish-speaking parents," Poore said.
If the board approves the new position, Bentonville would be the last of Northwest Arkansas' biggest four school districts to employ a full-time translator.
The Springdale School District has one person employed full time as a Spanish translator. The district also has several bilingual secretaries in the schools, according to Rick Schaeffer, Springdale's director of communications.
Fayetteville employs two parent liaisons who spend most of their time translating either spoken or written words, said Alan Wilbourn, public information officer.
Rogers employs three people who assist with translations, said Ashley Kelley, the district's communications director. Rogers, which has a Hispanic student population of about 40 percent, has had at least one full-time position dedicated to translation for at least the past 14 years, Kelley said.
The districts also hire other people at hourly wages to assist with interpretation at parent-teacher conference times.
NW News on 12/11/2014