New York City public school parents who do not speak English do not attend parent-teacher conferences, PA/PTA meetings, or other events. School newsletters are emailed in English, dates or important events in the school are posted in English, and very little is done by school staff to involve these parents in the activities of the children. A New York Times article "Translations for Students' Parents Sought" [February 20, 2004] quotes Paul Rose, a spokesman for the Department of Education, as saying that many parent coordinators were bilingual and that parents could call the mayor's 311 hotline with questions and could get answers in other languages. He did not mention that the parent coordinators often never answer their messages or leave their DOE-funded cell phones on. The E-Accountability Foundation asked parents to rate the responsiveness of 311 and found the number of questions answered sufficiently by this service to be extremely low.

On May 25, 2004 the Department of Education admitted, Claire Hoffman reports in the New York Times, that indeed there is a problem with the parent coordinators' translation abilities, but 'this will be fixed in September.'

Schools Told Translators Are Needed for Parents
By CLAIRE HOFFMAN

A coalition of advocacy groups charged yesterday that parent coordinators in New York City schools do not have enough translators to help the large number of parents who do not speak English.

The coalition called for the Department of Education to provide a more centralized system of translation services to improve the parent coordinator program, which was started last year as a centerpiece of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's sweeping changes in the educational system. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said the department was trying to hire someone to create and run an expanded translation system.

The criticisms came from Advocates for Children, the New York Immigration Coalition and seven other nonprofit groups that surveyed 111 of the school system's 1,200 parent coordinators. While 66 percent of those surveyed said they were bilingual, three-quarters said that more than one language other than English was spoken in their school. Eight of 10 said that they had to improvise to communicate with parents, often asking other bilingual staff members to act as interpreters.

"Parent coordinators are meant to be a bridge between the school and the parents," said Jill Chaifetz, executive director of Advocates for Children and one of the report's authors. "If you have a fundamental breakdown where you literally can't speak to each other, there is a real problem."

Margie Feinberg, a Department of Education spokeswoman, said the department was seeking to fill a new position called the director of translation and interpretation services.

The department said a centralized translation unit is to begin operation in September. The unit would expand the current translation of school documents and work with parent coordinators on interpretation issues.

The department currently translates important parent documents into the eight most commonly spoken non-English languages, which account for about 95 percent of all the non-English speaking families with children in public schools. Those are Spanish, Chinese, Haitian-Creole, Bengali, Russian, Arabic, Urdu and Korean.

A new report by Advocates For Children and the New York Immigration Coalition, "Denied at the Door: Language Barriers Block Immigrant Parents From School Involvement" surveyed from October 2003 through January 2004 915 parents whose primary language was not English and 55 students from immigrant families. 51 percent of New York City respondents said the parent never or rarely received written, translated, school information; 61 percent reported that the parent rarely or never received oral interpretation services at school.