2021 MD Family Engagement Summit: Returning to School – Listening and Learning from Immigrant Parents

Jessica Lim:

Alright. Alright, everyone’s coming in. Welcome everyone. I’m going to turn it over to Marta to go through some logistics before we start. We’ll come back to this slide in a bit too for people that come in later.

Marta Droddy:

Well, welcome everybody. The logistics are on the screen, but for those of you that are having a little trouble, if you put your mouse over onto the screen itself, you should have buttons that pop up on the bottom. If you want to view or hide closed captions, click on the CC button and the controls at the bottom of your screen. Also, we do have interpretation. We have Spanish and American sign language interpreters available. There is an interpretation button kind of looks like a globe that’s down on the bottom. So if you want to listen right now, everybody’s listening in English, so you should go to the interpretation button and clicking English. If you need Spanish, go down to that same button and click on Spanish and then the Spanish will come on. We’re using the chat box today. If you have any questions and any kind of posts or comments that you would like to make, I’ll be watching that for you so that I can make sure that anything that you want to have brought up to the group can be brought up. So thank you for joining us.

Marta Droddy:

If we go back to slide three, we can talk a little bit about… there you go. In the 2021 Maryland family engagement summit, it’s called Building Back Together: Reimagining Family Engagement, is a one day virtual event sponsored by the Maryland State Department of Education, and the Maryland Family Engagement Coalition, and the Collaborative Action for Family Engagement, some people call it CAFE and that’s part of MAEC. Each year, the summit engages district leaders, administrators, teachers, early childhood educators and providers, parents, families, communities, and nonprofit partners from school districts throughout the state of Maryland. This year summit focuses on preparing providers and educators to build effective partnerships. [foreign language 00:02:47]

Marta Droddy:

Children’s ongoing academic and social and emotional needs. It’s an opportunity to reestablish trust and a deep appreciation for one another while ensuring a welcoming and nurturing learning environment. So if we go back to slide four, then people can see, if they just came in, how you can get to closed captioning by going to the bottom and clicking on the CC button. If you go down to the bottom for interpretation, you can click on English or Spanish as you may need, and we also have American sign language. Anyone that would like to ask a question or have a comment, please go to the chat box and I will make sure that Laura or whoever you’re speaking to at the moment as a chance to answer whatever it is that you would like to have discussed.

Marta Droddy:

Okay. So the next page is page five and it tells us what’s going on. We had our welcoming remarks. We are going to have Laura Gardner, in just a minute, that is going to be talking to us about returning to school, listening and learning from immigrant parents. There will be a parent panel and a question and answer section, and we will have a wrap up.

Marta Droddy:

And now slide six, please. Laura Gardner, who you are going to be hearing from right now is the founder of immigrant connections. She has a 20 years’ experience working in education, refugee resettlement, and social work. While in education, she’s worked as a district level manager for immigrant families and community engagement, as well as a school social worker. She has facilitated professional development on building the capacity of teachers and school systems to engage immigrant families in their children’s educations, language access, cultural competency, equity, unaccompanied immigrant children, immigrant family reunification, and refugee resettlement. In 2017, she founded her own organization, Immigrant Connections, and on a personal level, I’ve seen her many times and you are going to really enjoy this session.

Marta Droddy:

So Laura, would you please take over from here?

Laura Gardner:

Thank you so much, Marta. Such kind words. I’m so happy to see so many people here today. I think you all are going to be in for such a treat when we get to the immigrant parent panel. So, if you haven’t in the chat box, introduce yourself, just say where you’re from, where you work, what your title is, that type of thing that will be helpful, so we could see where everybody’s coming from. And we will then go ahead and get started if we could go to the next slide, please.

Laura Gardner:

All right, so this is our session, Returning to School: Listening and Learning from Immigrant Parents. Next slide, please.

 

Laura Gardner:

Just a little background, I’ll keep this very brief, but in case you’re not familiar with Immigrant Connections in our organization we do lots of trainings. So, of course, in the before times, that was a little bit more, but now a lot more virtual that we’ve always done a number of asynchronous virtual trainings in our partnership with English learner portal. So you can take a look at some of those and then various consulting projects. So, if you go to immigrantsrefugeesandschools.org, a box pops up and you can sign up for our email newsletter, if you’re interested.

Laura Gardner:

Next slide, please. So here are our learning objectives today. We’re really going to talk about, and see firsthand, hear from parents firsthand, about the importance of parent voice and leadership in all conversations around returning to school. And as we know with this, COVID variant, the Delta variant things are still kind of up in the air and all over the place, and so whatever happens this school year, we need to just always continue to hear from our parents, including some of our most marginalized parents. Whether our parents who don’t speak English are new to the country, are immigrants, refugees, what have you, their voice is so important in all of this.

Laura Gardner:

Then, our second objective, we’re going to learn from immigrant parent panelists on what engagement practices really worked over the past year and three months at this point, and maybe what might we continue or not continue this coming school year.

Laura Gardner:

And then finally, we’re going to gain awareness of the relevance of language and national origin and conversations about educational equity. So I don’t know about you all, but in a lot of the districts that I’ve worked in, either as an employee or in the past four years, as more of a trainer consultant role, I think a lot of times educational equity conversations, departments, trainings, whatever you want to call, it tend to focus pretty exclusively on race. And of course, race is super important and we need to have all those conversations, and, we also need to include these extra layers. Some of these layers around different countries folks are from, language barriers, all of that ties in very greatly with educational equity. Okay. So, I want you to be thinking about those pieces as we move forward today.

Laura Gardner:

So, next slide please. So here’s our agenda. I right now we’re right on time for the first 20 minutes or so, I think I have about five to ten slides I’m just going to provide kind of some framing and some context, and then the best part from 2:45 to 3:45, we’re going to do… I’m going to facilitate an immigrant parent panel.

Laura Gardner:

So we have four moms from different parts of Maryland, all from different countries. We have one mom from El Salvador, one mom originally from Guatemala, but she’s one of the indigenous minorities, she’s Maya Mam, and a mom from Nigeria, and a mom from China. Okay. So, I’ll show you their pictures later and tell you a little bit more about them right before the panel.

Laura Gardner:

Next slide please. Alright. So those of you who have ever heard me speak before or attended any of my trainings, I always like to focus on these core beliefs, and I want us to be thinking about these as we move into this parent panel, as well as, as we move into this coming school year. You may have seen these core beliefs circulated before, I think a version of them came out with the book years ago called Beyond the Bake Sale.

Laura Gardner:

And so this first one in particular, this idea that parents have the capacity to help their children, regardless of their background. I think in my experiences, sometimes we, myself included, sometimes we struggle with this. Particularly when, if we’re working with parents, let’s say, for example, a mom from El Salvador who maybe never got the opportunity to go to school before, or a refugee mom who has been in a refugee camp for 20 years, or whether that’s due to the lack of educational opportunities or maybe parents who don’t speak English. I know that sometimes I’ve sat around, maybe if we’re at an IEP meeting or some other kind of meeting, and I’ve definitely heard comments before like, “oh, well, Carlos’ mom doesn’t speak English so she can’t really help him”, or, “so-and-so’s mom never went to school before, so they can’t really help them”. That kind of thing.

Laura Gardner:

So we really have to challenge those beliefs and really see what we can do. Look at the funds of knowledge that our parents have and truly recognize all of their strengths and the capacities that they have to help their children. It may look a little different than an American born parent or a parent of higher socioeconomic status or what have you, but all parents have capacity to support their children, right?

 

Laura Gardner:

And then the other two core beliefs we’ve got for the second one, every parent wants the best for their child. There may be a super extreme case of child abuse out there or something, an outlier here or there, but 99.9% of the time, every parent that I’ve ever encountered, they may struggle or they may not know quite how to do it, but they want the best for their child. They’re wanting to work together to partner and see how everybody can work together to support that student.

Laura Gardner:

And then the last one, parents are their child’s first teacher and are experts on their that one. That one, in my experiences, I think teachers typically recognize this one, this one maybe is a little bit less of a struggle.

Laura Gardner:

So I want you to just have those in the back of your head as we move forward with this panel. And again, as we kind of move forward throughout the school year.

Laura Gardner:

Next slide. So going even a little deeper, these are what I guess I would call principles to go by. I know that a lot of times in schools in the United States, sometimes we get stuck on thinking about family engagement or parent involvement in terms of showing up at various events or activities.

Laura Gardner:

So, before COVID, that was physical physically showing up and during COVID maybe, did they show up on the Zoom? But what I want to emphasize is that just because immigrant families may not show up at these various events, it doesn’t mean they don’t care about their children’s education, right? It just, there may be logistical barriers. There may be other reasons. Maybe they’ve never really been provided with any kind of orientation to how we do school in the United States and they don’t really understand what’s expected of them. Those types of things, all sorts of reasons.

Laura Gardner:

The second principle that is important to go by, I know that I kind of operate from this lens, is this idea that immigrant parents have the capacity for leadership and it may look different in various cultures. I know when I used to run our immigrant parent leadership academy in Anne Arundel county public schools in Maryland.

Laura Gardner:

And we used to have some really great conversations about what are qualities of leadership in various countries around the world. In some countries or cultures, it’s when you speak up and speak out and maybe are a little bit louder. The United States probably followed a little bit under that category. Versus maybe some other cultures where your most highly respected leaders are those that can kind of keep their emotions in check and are perhaps a little bit quieter, that type of thing. It varies. So, it varies in different cultures and again, just emphasizing that parents do have the capacity for leadership, and if you’re interested in learning more about that, I’m going to show a slide later. I actually teach an online class on cultivating leadership skills among immigrant parents and we show a lot of examples of immigrant parents testifying in front of the school board and looking at programs and initiatives that helped parents kind of grow and develop their capacity for that type of thing.

Laura Gardner:

And then the last one here are… Immigrant parents are capable and, in fact, essential players in school improvement and equity efforts. Okay? So be thinking about that in your school improvement plans, all of your equity initiatives, immigrant parents, any parents for that matter, they’re not just individuals to sort of tack on at the end when you’re thinking about, “oh, we need this committee or we need this work group”. They need to be fundamentally involved and integrated in that work from, from the get-go.

Laura Gardner:

Okay. Next slide, please. Alright. A little bit about parent rights and advocacy. For some of you, these may be a no-brainer, but for others of you who maybe you’re a teacher and you’re at the ground level, and maybe you’ve never been to a school board meeting, or maybe you’ve never worked in central office or kind of had that bird’s eye view where you can see what kind of big picture and see what parents rights are.

Laura Gardner:

So I’ll just kind of go through these a little quickly, but the first one, I emphasize this in every single one of my trainings, I hope I’m preaching to the choir, but I may not be depending on where you’re coming from with this information. But number one is parents, all parents and caregivers, family, aunts, uncles, grandmas, whoever, have a right to receive information in a language they understand.

Laura Gardner:

Okay, so I can include… I don’t think I have the link handy. I can do it maybe we’ll run on a little break, but there was a 2015 document that came out this really great two-pager that was put out by the US Department of Education and the US Department of Justice. Two pages available in a number of languages that outlined very succinctly what we are supposed to be doing in our school districts in terms of providing interpretation and translation services. It outlines exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. I know we’re not all there by any means, but I think it’s always important to know at least what we’re sort of supposed to be doing so we can advocate and kind of head in that direction. Right?

Laura Gardner:

The second right that parents have, they have the right to weight in on school board policies, regulations, committees, so on and so forth. So for any of you who have been to a school board meeting before, or have been involved in seeing how policies and regulations are passed and that type of thing. I don’t know about you, but typically in the districts worked in, it tends to be white and or higher socioeconomic status parents who weigh in on these things. And unfortunately, all too often, many of our families of color, immigrant families, families of lower socioeconomic status, various marginalized groups are not often present in these opportunities to weigh in on school board policies, regulations, and committees. And there’s various reasons for that. Were they made aware of it? Maybe it comes back down to number one. Maybe there was a press release that went out or like a connected or one of those robocalls, you know, the, the emails and that type of thing that go out.

Laura Gardner:

Maybe it was only in English, maybe no one was ever informed that they had a right to provide their 2 cents on the school board policies. Think about the budget, how many ESL teachers are going to be hired, how many interpreters are going to be hired, that type of thing. And that speaks to…

Laura Gardner:

Jumped right into kind of number three, kind of goes together. But again, school boards, when they’re pushing through policies and regulations every year, there’s also that funding cycle. They’re always deciding how the, how the funds are going to going to be spent, and so parents have a lot of power for that. They have a lot of power and a lot of say, and if our most marginalized parents are never at the table for that, their interests are not going to be going to be met.

Laura Gardner:

All right, next slide. Okay. So I wanted to provide just a few examples of basically what we’re talking about is parents having a voice and we’re talking a lot about sharing power. Okay. I remember back when the national PTA standards came out, if I’m remembering correctly, I believe one of the six standards is on educators and parents sharing power. Okay? And so when I think about kind of what this looks like in general, and then specifically, what has this been looking like during COVID, particularly last school year?

Laura Gardner:

Here are a few examples. So, I know in some districts they were doing a Facebook live sessions for parents in Spanish or other languages that were needed, and sometimes directly with the superintendent. That’s pretty huge, especially for a lot of the districts in Maryland and other places that are with us today.

Laura Gardner:

To be able to sort of speak directly to a superintendent doesn’t happen really all that often. So kudos to the districts who kind of opened the lines of communication and made it as simple as possible. And, those Facebook live types of opportunities, they allow educators and administrators to be responsive to parents, questions and comments in real time. Sometimes that may be, “oh, you know what, that’s a really good question. We’re going to have to get back to you, we’re going to have to talk about that”, and that kind of thing, but as much as possible to have that dialogue real time and not have it be so staged.

Laura Gardner:

Another example, and this is in the image here, I know that Prince William county public schools, shout-out to them, I don’t know if any of them are here with us today… They were doing a lot of virtual parent camps. Some of you may have heard of parent camp in general before, it’s one of those kind of, conferences where it brings together parents and educators to talk about various issues or concerns of learn together.

Laura Gardner:

So, when COVID started, parent camp developed these virtual parent camps and Prince William county kind of took it a step further early on in COVID. Way early on. You can see they were doing these, I think this flyer was from May of 2020. I think they started these in like April, so we were like a month into COVID, where they would bring all the parents together. They’d all log on to zoom, and then they would do their breakout rooms based on language.

Laura Gardner:

So they had parents helping parents and other staff involved, but for the most part, parents helping parents, they had the Spanish breakout room, they had Korean, they had, I forget what else was on there. I think they had Urdu, then the Vietnamese community was like, “Hey, we want one”, so then they had a Vietnamese breakout room. They were, again, just very natural conversations. It was like, “Hey, I don’t know how to work Google classroom, do you?”, “Oh yeah. Okay. Let me do a screen, share and show you”, parents helping parents, and then if anyone needed an educator or particular administrator or department or something to advise them they could connect with them.

Laura Gardner:

… something to advise them, they could connect with them the following week. So, again, very much sharing power because there was no super set agenda, right? It was, what are the needs right now, and let’s go with it. Another example, I heard of a number of districts, I know Prince George’s County did this, they had town halls with good old phone calls for all the families that maybe didn’t have access to computers and Zoom and all the things. They said, “We’re going to do a town hall by telephone in English and Spanish,” and I think they did it in French, too. I don’t remember all the languages that they did, but parents could pick up their phone, tune in. And then they had a way where, I don’t remember all the details but, “Press one if you have a question,” or something like that, and they were able to also address their questions and concerns in real time. So, again, not so staged. It was very organic.

Marta Droddy:

Laura?

Laura Gardner:

Yeah?

Marta Droddy:

Karen, I think it’s Livia, Liva, has some really good comments about parent camp if she wants to unmute so you can hear them.

Laura Gardner:

Yeah, please do.

Marta Droddy:

Or if not, I’ll just tell you what she said. She said that she loves parent camp sessions. The breakout rooms are great, and that you’re able to leave the rooms and go to another one peacefully.

 

Laura Gardner:

Nice. Nice. Very awesome. And thank you. I’m catching up on the chat here. Thank you to, I think it was… Is it? Yeah, Young-chan. Thanks, Young-chan. Young-chan shared the fact sheet that I was mentioning earlier from 2015 that outlines basically what we’re supposed to be interpreting and translating for parents. It has some really great… Oh, it looks like her mic didn’t work. That’s okay. All right. Awesome. Could we have the next slide, please?

Karen Liva:

Hello? Sorry. Hello? Sorry. My microphone is working. Can you hear me now?

Laura Gardner:

I think we have some…

Karen Liva:

Are you able to hear me now?

Laura Gardner:

We can hear you. Who is this?

Karen Liva:

This is Karen Liva. I’m sorry. I had to change to the application so that my microphone can work. I wanted to add on with the parent cafe sessions. I’m not a parent myself, but I am a family engagement specialist and I always enjoy learning and asking questions and sharing the message from the parents that I come across. And so I came across parent cafe, I’m sorry, the parent camps, and it was such a great experience. They mentioned before the breakout rooms and then having to meet the different presenters in each room and it was just a very, very comfortable session. So, I definitely strongly suggest for other people who are parents or not parents to join. It was sentimental. And I sometimes get nervous asking questions because I’m not a parent, but it was very welcoming.

Laura Gardner:

Awesome.

Karen Liva:

So, I just wanted to share that all.

Laura Gardner:

Awesome.

Karen Liva:

Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you so much. All right, we’re going to just wrap up here. We’re going to move into our panel in a second. So, here are who we’re going to have for our panelists. So, we have the first parent. She goes by Gloria Fagbemi. She’s Nigerian. She and her family, they’ve moved around a bit, but her most recent experience, I believe, for her children is with Howard County Public Schools. Then we have Bianca Flores. She’s Salvadoran and a parent in Prince George’s County Public Schools. She speaks Spanish, so she will be speaking directly in the Spanish room and then the interpreter will be interpreting her message into English for all of us in the English room, okay? Then we have Wei Kuang, who is Chinese and in Anne Arundel County Public Schools. And finally, Maria Marroquin who is, again, originally from Guatemala. She’s Maya Mam, and she’s in Prince George’s County Public Schools.

Laura Gardner:

Next slide. I think we have a couple other little things. Oh, so here’s a heads-up. So, here I just wanted to give you a sense. Here are the types of questions I’m going to be asking them. So, most of it will be me facilitating the questions, but then we left about 10 or so minutes, maybe longer, depending on how long their answers are, for you all to ask questions. But so I’m not going to read all these, but you can see the senses or get the gist of the questions. How were you impacted by COVID? How did you support your child’s education during this time? How did your children’s teachers engage you? That type of thing, okay? Next slide, please.

Laura Gardner:

Two final announcements before we jump onto our panel. For here, I just wanted to share, I know I mentioned earlier we do a lot of synchronous and asynchronous trainings. I don’t want to do hardcore marketing now or anything, but this is one of those opportunities where I’m like, “We have to take advantage of this.” So, a lawyer colleague of mine, Natasha Quiroga, is doing a three-hour workshop as part of Immigrant Connections, our organization, on How To Support Students in Their Immigration Journey. It’s next week, Tuesday from 1:00 to 4:00. So, it looks like maybe Marta or someone could drop that link in the box since obviously folks can’t click the “here” on the slider. I can do it later on. And then lastly, next slide, please.

Laura Gardner:

This is just an example. I mentioned earlier that we do a lot of the asynchronous trainings in partnership with English Learner Portal. And so if this topic, well, if family engagement interests you in general, which it probably does since it’s why you’re here, the top three courses are on family engagement, but the top one on the right, you’ll see Cultivating Leadership Skills Among Immigrant and English Learner Parents, speaks probably most to what we’re talking about today and elevating the voices of immigrant parents and that type of thing. And then one last one to highlight would be probably the bottom right there, Supporting Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth in US Schools, because that’s an important topic right now. We have so many unaccompanied immigrant kids coming into Maryland, as well as other states. So, the asynchronous courses start September 20th. And perhaps, again, Marta or someone could drop that link into the box.

Laura Gardner:

All right. We’ll give a couple of minutes here for any questions before we move into our panel. I will check the chat box. Here’s our contact information. You can always find me. Immigrantsrefugeesandschools.org. Okay. We’ll give it a minute for the chat, but if Gracie and whoever else is controlling everything right now, if maybe you want to remove the slides and we can highlight our panelists. Hey, Gloria. Hey, Wei.

Wei Kuang:

Hi.

Laura Gardner:

Hi. And I saw-

Gloria Fagbemi:

Hello.

Laura Gardner:

There we go. Hey, Bianca. And I think I saw Maria join, but I’m not sure if she was able to join yet.

Maria Marroquin:

Hola. Si. Gracias.

 

Laura Gardner:

Oh, okay. Okay.

Glada:

Hello? Yes. Here I am.

Laura Gardner:

Wonderful. [Glada 00:31:41], real quick for our interpreter, the fact that she joined, I think possibly by phone, is she going to be able to…

Glada:

Hmm. That’s a good question. If she can select Spanish she should hear me, but I’m not sure.

Laura Gardner:

I don’t know if she joined… Let’s see. Maria? Can we try asking if-

Maria Marroquin:

Si.

Glada:

I just asked her. She said yes.

Maria Marroquin:

[foreign language 00:32:17].

Laura Gardner:

Okay.

Maria Marroquin:

Si. [foreign language 00:32:26]. Si.

Laura Gardner:

[foreign language 00:32:28]?

Glada:

Yeah. I just asked her if she could hear me and she said yes.

Laura Gardner:

Okay. All right.

Glada:

So, perfect.

Laura Gardner:

Awesome. All right. Well, we’re going to go ahead and get started everybody. And so we’ll give everybody first an opportunity. Everybody’s going to have about two minutes per question, just to let everybody know. And the first question I’ll give to Bianca. Bianca, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, like how many kids do you have? What grades are they in? What county do you live in? All of that kind of thing.

Bianca Flores:

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Bianca Flores. I have two children. One will start the 10th grade this year. The other one, he will start fourth grade. I come from El Salvador and I live here in… I couldn’t get the area. Sorry.

Laura Gardner:

Prince George’s County, right?

Bianca Flores:

Prince George’s County. Sure. Adelphi. Okay.

Laura Gardner:

Okay. And where are you originally from and what languages do you speak, Bianca?

Bianca Flores:

I come from El Salvador and I speak Spanish.

Laura Gardner:

Wonderful. Okay. Thank you, Bianca. Next, we’ll ask the same question with Gloria. Sorry. I was hearing a weird noise there. Gloria, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself. How many kids do you have? What grades are they in? Where are you from? All that good stuff.

Gloria Fagbemi:

Hi everyone. So, my name is Gloria Fagbemi and I’m a mom of three boys, a 12-year-old who is going to seventh grade, a 17-year-old who’s going into 12th grade, and then my oldest is in college. He finished right before COVID, the class of 2019. We are in Howard County, Maryland so we go to our Howard County Public Schools. Hmm, what else? I am Nigerian-American, but my friends tell me I am more Nigerian than American. And that’s because at a young age I was taken back to Nigeria. So, that’s where I did my elementary school, my middle school and what we call secondary school and also my college, and then I came back to the states in ’98. Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you. I know, Gloria, I’ve really appreciated getting to know you because you’ve lived and gone back and forth between Nigeria and the United States. You have such an amazing perspective. You can see both cultures from afar. You have a-

Gloria Fagbemi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Laura Gardner:

Yeah.

Gloria Fagbemi:

Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Awesome. All right. So glad you’re here, Gloria. Let’s see. Maria, same question for you. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Maria Marroquin:

Hola.

 

Glada:

Hello.

Maria Marroquin:

My name is Maria Marroquin.

Maria Marroquin:

Originally come from Guatemala. I am Maya Mam. I speak Mam and Spanish and I speak a little bit of English. I have three children. I’m a single mom. I’ve been living in the Hyattsville, Maryland area for 16 years. My children are between 14… Well, there are 10, 12 and 14-years-old. One is in high school, the other in elementary school and the other in middle school. I feel proud of living in the PG County, and I’m proud of being part of the group, too.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you so much, Maria. We’re so happy that you could make it today. And for the folks who may be confused, Maria’s not able to join us on camera, so you’re not going to see her face. You’re just going to hear her voice. And then lastly, we have Wei. Wei, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Wei Kuang:

Okay.

Glada:

Okay.

Wei Kuang:

[crosstalk 00:37:13] I’m Wei. I live in Arundel County. I have only one kid, my son. He’s the 10th grade. He likes science and sports. He play basketball and soccer, and he’s in the STEM program in South River High School. We moved here from China about 10 years ago. I once worked for a architecture design company in China, but now I’m a part-time Chinese teacher. At home we speak Chinese, so my son can say both Chinese and English, but I think his English is much better than Chinese, even though I’m teaching Chinese, but he is like a native English speaker. So, being immigrant parents aware I am very interested in the difference of both education system between China and America. But right now I still struggling with those education systems. So, I appreciate how this opportunity to communicate everyone here. Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you so much, Wei. I am so appreciative of everyone who could be here today. We have such a great group of diverse voices. I think sometimes when, really anywhere in the United States, sometimes when we hear the word immigrant, everyone thinks Spanish speaker for some reason. But we have so many other languages and so many other backgrounds and cultures. So, I’m happy that everybody here could be here today. All right, we’re going to go back to Bianca. Bianca, could you tell us a bit about how you and your family and community were impacted by COVID? How did you get through it?

Bianca Flores:

Yes. So, at first, the first impact I received was that I lost my job. I lost 80% of my employment and it’s difficult because when mom and dad work and we both bring things to the house, it affects us a lot, especially Hispanic people because we are immigrants. So, it’s harder to find a job. And after a few months, my husband got sick with COVID. After a few weeks, my other son, then my other one, and then it was me. But I have the joy of working at schools because I’m the president of the PTO school in [inaudible 00:40:40] School. And I know a lot of other mothers and fathers, and I think that thanks to them I was able to overcome all that, because imagine we can’t go out and we didn’t have food. So, they were the ones that helped me overcome this.

Laura Gardner:

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. That’s really interesting to hear how the school community really rallied around you and your family, and that was a big piece of support for you. Okay. Gloria, same question for you. Could you tell us a little bit about how you and your family and community, if you’re able to speak at all to the larger Nigerian community, how you all were impacted by COVID and how did you get through it?

Gloria Fagbemi:

So, for me on the family side of things, it was definitely really crazy, I’d say. My oldest was in Florida in school so, we had to quickly work around getting him home. Like, “Oh, should we drive there? Should we get you on the plane? And then there are all those people on the plane with you. Are we going to quarantine you?” So, it was really crazy. But he ended up coming home via the plane. Sprayed him down.

Laura Gardner:

You sprayed him down? With what?

 

Gloria Fagbemi:

With the Lysol I still had when I went to pick him up and had him change out of his clothes, the ones he had, the hoodies and the face cap, and tied it up in a bag. So, that was the first child. But then for everybody else at home we just continued on after that final [inaudible 00:42:34]. Because the schools came after my work. So, there was still a day where my kids, I believe, went to school and I was already home. And so once we were like, “Okay, we’re here,” the school was still reaching out, I think. What I noticed was we were really impacted. Community-wise, everyone was stepping up. I don’t know if people remember, but even the neighbors were stepping up to check on people and to offer things. So, that happened in my apartment. And then the bigger Nigerian community were checking up on people. So, if you had any network, you were getting text messages, phone calls to see how you were doing. Even my church, we had more social activity at that time. I think I lost my internet connection.

Laura Gardner:

We can still hear you, but your face is frozen. So, it’s okay. Keep going.

Gloria Fagbemi:

So, even my church, we had more Zoom things we were all doing together as a community, which was really, really encouraging. And then Columbia generally, there were other events happening to get you aware of what you needed to do on how to keep you safe. And again [crosstalk 00:44:06]-

Maria Marroquin:

[foreign language 00:44:06] Comcast [foreign language 00:44:09]

Gloria Fagbemi:

… pay for shows that were free for the first couple. So, I think everybody really stepped up to help in that way. Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

Okay. Thanks. I remember those first couple months, it was like there were all these links, “Join this free art class,” and, “Sign up for this.” It was so many things. All right. Same question for Maria. Could you tell us about how you and your family and community were impacted by COVID and what helped you get through it?

 

Maria Marroquin:

Hi. Yes. It was a very difficult time both for the family and the community. It was really impacting. At first, it was a shock for the community of those who, as like indigenous peoples or people who have a certain race, we didn’t know how to do things. The community got sick. We were confused because schools closed, stores shut down, jobs were lost. Myself in particular, I lost my job, but thank God with time I got my job back. But some families didn’t, so we had to deal with other parents so we could organize ourselves and provide food…

Maria Marroquin:

So we could organize ourselves and provide food and basic things. We asked for help with other churches. They gave us the opportunity to bring those things to those families that were sick with COVID. We lost families, families died. Two children were left orphans, it was really sad. But at the same time, I learned a very important lesson, myself and my children, because we saw the love that’s present in a family. What being united as a community is, how important it is, because as immigrants, this was really shocking because they didn’t know how the system worked. A lot of parents didn’t know how to connect to online events but we helped each other. So it’s a lot of things, but this is the little I can tell you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you for that. And I have a follow-up question. Some people on this webinar today, this call, they may not realize that a lot of indigenous Maya from Guatemala don’t speak Spanish or maybe don’t speak much Spanish. So could you say a little bit more about that and how that perhaps impacted your community’s ability to get help from, everything from, I don’t know, social services to the schools, to different things.

Maria Marroquin:

Yes. Because of the language barrier, because we can’t speak the correct Spanish, many parents didn’t know how to access a website, or they didn’t even know how to create a Zoom event. They didn’t know what it is to be online. And many parents didn’t have access to WiFi connection, or a phone, or tablet. So that was really shocking because some students were disconnected for a long time because they didn’t even have a laptop to study. So that was really important in terms of how much it impacted. And many parents don’t speak Spanish well, it’s really hard for them and they can’t understand, or sometimes they are afraid because they can’t express themselves. And I’m sorry that I am saying this, but sometimes the schools get upset if parents ask for help, ask for translation with some words.

 

Maria Marroquin:

So that’s something that affected their communities because they are afraid. And they say, because I can’t speak, then I can’t do things. And they lock themselves because they know that they can’t access help easily. They know that’s more difficult for them as parents. And when children are immigrants, that’s also difficult. Sometimes they can’t express themselves because the system is very different from one country to the other. And it’s not the same as when children come from here, they are more familiar with the system and they have a little more access, as opposed to children who weren’t born here. It’s really hard for them.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you for sharing all of that. I was trying to jot down some notes, because you’ve said so many important things. It’s very important for all of the teachers and educators, and principals on this call today to hear what you just said about how sometimes parents are afraid to speak up, or if they do, if someone complains that they need translation, that’s not okay. Parents have a right to receive information in a language they understand, and that includes Mum or Katiati, or whatever the language is. So thank you for being honest and sharing that with us. And then the other thing I was kind of smiling, because you were saying about how many parents in your community didn’t know how to set up Zoom. Don’t feel bad because most parents [crosstalk 00:51:05] didn’t really know how to do a lot of this kind of thing too. So it was new for, I think, many people. But thank you.

Laura Gardner:

And so. We’re going to turn to Wei now. Wei, could you tell us a little bit about how you and your family and community were impacted by COVID and how you got through it?

Wei Kuang:

Okay. Yeah. For us, we really had a very hard time during this pandemic. First, my mother-in-law passed away last spring. But we couldn’t go to China to attend the funeral ritual. That is so graved my husband. And we’ve been very depressing for quite some times. And then, I think everybody all know about the Asian hate. Yeah. And they against our Chinese community. Some group of Chinese people even discussed how to protect themselves. We chat, like some social media. And it seems more and more crime occurred and we’ll post it on social media. The news popped up every now and then, all leads for me, are more terrible than the virus, I think. I’ve been worried and disprized, although I can’t seem to have those bad experience, but I still feel worried. During these hard time, my families and my friends give us a lot of support and comfort.

 

Wei Kuang:

So thankfully, I soon overcame my anxiety. And my son, I think he didn’t get the effect. But I think there are still some people and the kids, they had bad experience and they need more support and help, I think. Yeah. Just this. Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you, Wei. I don’t normally get emotional, but I’m tearing up over here because I’m just thinking about the horrible things been said to people.

Wei Kuang:

Thank you.

Marta Droddy:

There are a couple of comments that I think that are really important that people have said. One was by [Nevada 00:54:28], and it’s specifically for Maria and Bianca, but I think almost anybody can comment on this. It’s, where do you suggest that school systems target registration and enrollment drives for our ELL families? Many families are hesitant to have their children in school because they might be undocumented and think that they’ll get deported. It’s very important for all of these students to attend school. You suggest churches, community, or grocery stores to place flyers in these locations. And I do want to say that schools have to be very careful. I will give an example from a school that I was at.

Marta Droddy:

We used to have a behavior form that was sent home to parents when the child was misbehaving in the classroom, but not badly enough that they would have to go to the office. And they called it a documentation form. And my families freaked out because they thought we were trying to document them. And because it was written in educational-ese, it was very hard to understand. And so we had to have it translated into various languages so that the families would know what was actually being said in this. And we renamed it so that the word documentation was not in there. And it also goes to Fannie, he had a comment about how the schools need to ensure that they’re providing interpretation that’s qualified.

Laura Gardner:

Yeah. For sure.

 

Marta Droddy:

Because sometimes information gets misinterpreted.

Laura Gardner:

Marta, could we hold those just for the end, where we open it up to everybody? Would that be okay? Just so we can keep the flow going and then we’ll definitely… Grab those for us, so we can have those all lined up at the end. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. These are great questions coming in. Marta will grab them all and we’ll have them all lined up for our Q&A. We’re going to go back to Bianca. If you could talk about your kids, how did they do with virtual school or… Trying to remember how old your kids are. Yeah. Virtual school, and how did you support your children’s education and development over the past year and three months?

Bianca Flores:

It was quite strong because my eldest son has ADHD, he is 15. And my youngest, the one who is nine years and a half old, I had to go through the process of… Or I feel what Wei was saying, because he got anxious. He wasn’t sharing with his friends or with the family. We started the school year and everything was virtual, so he started becoming too anxious. He didn’t want to turn on his camera, he was biting his nails and pressing on his shirt. I had to look out for help. Thank God we found help. And he’s been able to overcome many of those things that got me worried, because knowing that your kid is going through anxiety as a mother, you don’t want that to happen.

Bianca Flores:

But I fortunately found a solution to it. And thank God he’s overcome his anxiety a lot. He is happy, but we are a little worried about the situation, but at the same time, we have no option. We have to send him to school because still, we have the concern as a mother, but I’m happy that he overcame the anxiety. And thankfully, my eldest son didn’t have that, and everything went well.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you so much, Bianca. We need more students and families and community members to talk about mental health and anxiety, or depression, or whatever we’re dealing with, and how we got help. So thank you for sharing that beautiful example of how your son was able to get help and he’s doing better. Gloria, your turn. How did your children do with virtual school and how did you support their education over the past year?

 

Gloria Fagbemi:

Overall, I believe my kids did well. Jay, coincidentally, had been taken out, my 12 year old. I’d taken him out of beforecare and aftercare, two weeks before COVID, for other reasons. Because he was getting into little issues with the program, which hadn’t happened before. And he was in fifth grade and that was also new. And I was like, okay, I will manage you in those hours instead of sending you there. So then COVID hit, so that now it became more work. So even though the elementary school had a really great system with their checking in on them and everything they were doing. But I still found like I had to keep him on task, on homework and even just being focused and engage in class, because he wouldn’t just be able to sit still and pay attention to what they were saying. And then doing all that and still having to be on call for my own work. That was a lot. And then there was also the other things, because then they still had to eat.

Laura Gardner:

You’re like, darn it, they still had to eat.

Gloria Fagbemi:

I’m making food, I’m doing the check-ins, as if I was the teacher. That was a lot. And then the emails would come also. But I feel like in the beginning stage of it, I want to believe I helped him more than I ever have before, or even in the second part of COVID, because I was always checking in on him, like with homework and with what he was doing. The teachers were sending information on what to do to help him. So educationally, we were good. Developmentally, it was a struggle because I was just like, what are you battling with? Why can’t you sit still and focus on your tell you. He’d be like, he gets bored with the screen time he was having. Even though he could do a video game for a long time, but it was harder getting him to focus on school-related stuff. Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

Yeah. Video games versus school related stuff. Suddenly, no ability to focus. Yeah. Totally understand that. Thank you for sharing that with us. And I love how candid you are. I mean, I think most parents were like, how am I supposed to work and help my children with their schoolwork? And, oh, I have to feed them too? What? How am I going to do all these things? Let’s see. So, Maria, same question for you. How did your children do with virtual school and how did you support your children’s education over the past year?

Maria Marroquin:

For me, it was very difficult because I’m a single mom. So it was really hard. I had an experience with my youngest daughter who is 10 years old. She had a very strong depression because she was used to going to school, going out and staying in the afterhours program or other activities. And she would come back home at 6:00 PM. So it was really hard on her because when she was locked, she didn’t want to have a shower or comb her hair. She just wanted to sleep and sleep. I had to look for help for her. Try to also organize her assignments because being in front of a screen was very stressful for her, so it was a really difficult time.

Maria Marroquin:

But at the same time, not only my daughter, but there were other children that were much worse than mine. So if a parent knows how to help their children, we know how to look for help. But some parents don’t know how to do it, and we end up in a much worse situation. There were other parents that were going through the same thing, so I had to give some information to them so they could access different resources for help for her daughter, because she couldn’t leave her daughter alone. So many parents went through the same thing. There are different types of anxiety in children. My other two children, because they are a little older, they didn’t suffer so much.

Maria Marroquin:

They adapted a little bit more easily because they are a little older. They can think better. And now with going back to school, they don’t agree with going to school that much, but I think we need to accept it because it’s like with everything, there are good and bad things. And students are used to making friends, talking, sharing, and doing activities with other children. And when things like this happens and they have to keep distance, not touch their friends or give hugs, that’s really stressful for them. It’s something that is difficult to explain to little children. But it’s step-by-step and we need to look for professional help so they can understand. Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you for that. And it’s so interesting, how some of our children have been able to cope better than others. And just like I told Bianca, thank you for sharing a little bit about your daughter’s situation with depression. We have that example of Bianca’s example of anxiety, and how you both, bravo to you, reached out and found some help for them. And thank you for also, as you mentioned, helping other families access community resources, who maybe weren’t aware of those resources. So, awesome. Wei, if you could talk to us a little bit about how your child, you have your one, right?

Wei Kuang:

Yeah.

 

Laura Gardner:

Did with virtual school. And how did you support them?

Wei Kuang:

Oh, okay. My son, I think he’s doing well with the virtual school. Before the online school started, I just set up a quiet and a comfortable space for him to study. And then he told me he like virtual glass. He’s think it can make him more focus.

Laura Gardner:

Wait. Say that again. He wanted a water glass?

Wei Kuang:

No. Sorry. He said to me, he’s think the virtual class.

Laura Gardner:

Oh, virtual class.

Wei Kuang:

I’m sorry. The virtual class made him more focus.

Laura Gardner:

Oh. So he was thinking it was better for him?

Wei Kuang:

Yes.

Laura Gardner:

Okay. I’ve heard that from some students. Yeah.

Wei Kuang:

Yeah. And then he likes to stay home to take the virtual class. But I’m not sure it’s true or not, I think he can get more time to play video games. But he’s doing well. And due to my language barrier and the way we teaching different in China. I can now give him my son more help, support on his academics. So since he from –

Wei Kuang:

Since he from elementary school, I just teach him to use the online resource to help him to solve his problems. So I think this habit he kept and the used a lot and now I think this habit help him to feel comfortable with the work for class. And in the other hand, I’m really grateful to the teachers. They do a lot of extra work, the online class is more difficult, it’s not easy. I’m a part-time trainee teacher, I do the online class too. I need to prepare a lot of works and resource, I think all the teachers do the same thing. So I’m really grateful to all these teachers. Yeah, that’s helped myself a lot! Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you Way. And I just wanted to point out, you started to say something like “oh, I’m” I don’t remember how you worded it, but something about how I’m not from here so I can’t support my son’s studies, something like that. But, I want to point out, you talked about how you helped (prep) set up a quiet area for your son, right?

Wei Kuang:

Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

You talked about how you helped teach him study habits. You talked about how you taught him how to use online resources. So, you did many, many things to support his education. I wanted to make sure you understand that you’re doing an awesome job.

Wei Kuang:

Thank you. Yeah, the teacher do awesome job too. I think. Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

Yeah. I agree. I think teachers do a great job, but today we’re honoring the parents.

Wei Kuang:

Okay, thank you, thank you.

Laura Gardner:

All right. So we’re right on… well, we’re a few minutes behind, but we’re doing okay. We’re going to ask for the last four questions, each of you are only going to answer one of them. Okay? And then for the audience, we’re going to open it up. We’ll have a good 10 minutes or so for questions. So Bianca, could you tell us, how did your children’s teachers engage you over the past year? How did they communicate with you or did they?

Bianca:

I have always believed that it’s not the school’s responsibility to make us get involved. I think it’s the parent’s responsibility, because if we want our children to be okay, it’s not just leaving them at school or dropping them at school and that’s it. It’s really important for me to be involved regardless of the fact of the teacher telling me something. It’s my responsibility as a mother, that’s one thing. Second, in elementary school, I’ve never had any problems but I’ve realized with my son’s experience that in some of the mentoree and high school schools, there are some issues in the sense that you go to school and you want to be more involved, and it becomes a little bit more, a little bit more difficult because, many teachers want them to do things by themselves and I understand that that is okay because he’s growing up and he needs to learn.

Bianca Flores:

But if teachers come and say, oh, I need them bring this to me and not you that makes the parent keep more distance from school. So if there are some principles here, this goes for you. If a parent comes and wants to get involved, don’t put a stop on them because then parents will say, oh, but they don’t want us to go there, because I’m always getting involved and I like doing it. This is what my husband says, okay, “they never been able to kick you out and they won’t be able to do it because it’s my children” and I’m involved with two different schools. I’m always there. Even if he goes to the 10 school, I always help the PTO and I get involved because it’s not just dropping him and leaving him there. And I also try to be there with the the school maps to try to check if he is handing in his homework. Even if the teachers don’t invite me there, I’m always going to be there until he graduates from high school.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you, Bianca. Wow. The schools that your children are in are really lucky to have you, you’re doing an awesome job. All right. For Gloria, Maria and Way, I’m going to ask that you keep your response to about one minute so that we have enough time to get to the audience questions. So Gloria, are there any ways in which your children’s schools engaged or communicated with you during COVID that you hope they’ll continue as you know, for this school year?

Gloria Fagbemi:

So, I want to say for my, and again, I keep using my 12 year old because the 17 year old was so on top of his tasks and there was not a lot of management I had to do for him. When my 12 year old was in elementary school, there were a lot of things that were really engaging that they did that first year of COVID; backyard activities, breakfast with the principal, some other kinds of check-ins and then emails. And then in middle school, I feel like it was the other side where there were more, of course still more emails, and the engagement came from the school to the parents. So we were being told to attend parent engagement events, and then the conferences, but it wasn’t as hands-on.

Laura Garnder:

Oh, Gloria, we just lost your sound for some reason. It’s weird because it doesn’t show that you’re muted, but like, literally mid-sentence suddenly we couldn’t hear you.

Laura Gardner:

Oh, wait, try again.

Gloria Fagbemi:

Okay. I’m back. Yeah, no connection. Where did I lose you with a half a minute left?

Laura Gardner:

You started, you were talking about the difference between elementary and middle and then like how the engagement was from the school to you.

Gloria Fagbemi:

Yeah. It was more towards me as opposed to it being towards my child, but I don’t know maybe that’s how middle school works because it’s bigger, but yeah. But definitely that’s the only thing I noticed that was different. Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Maria this one is really important. So our immigrant students and our ESOL students learning English were greatly impacted by COVID. What do you think that schools can do now as we move forward to really prioritize their needs both academically and with some of the social, emotional and kind of mental health pieces that both you and Bianca talked about?

Maria Marroquin:

Yes. I think they were part of many things because it’s really difficult for them to speak a different language because they have a teacher at school and then they have an extra hour, so they learn English. But, when this was online, it was harder because it was difficult to be able to connect with the English teacher. I don’t know of many children, but I know if a parent that had some trouble because the child couldn’t understand their assignments, they weren’t able to join some lessons, they couldn’t, they didn’t want to connect because they didn’t understand what they were saying. It was really difficult.

Maria Marroquin:

I had to use the phone the google translate tool and explain what that meant in Spanish. But it was really difficult for the students who are learners of a second language, and what the school should do is make it easier for them follow up on those children, because they are also part of the school. And they are also the future of this country because teachers also teach them, I know a child who is 12, he speaks German, English, Spanish, and he will be a translator in the future. So that’s all. Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you so much, Maria, that’s so helpful. Way if it’s okay with you, I’m going to skip that question so that we can have the 10 full minutes with the audience questions. Okay. Marta, if you want to hop on now and please direct, I hope you picked a few of the best questions.

Marta Droddy:

Well, there are a few, one of the… this is the comment and it’s from Carla Plaza. She says, I’m not sure why I can’t direct this message to everyone, but please share with this panel, the moms on the panel are amazing. Thank you for sharing your experience with us today. And then it says las mamás en el panel son increíbles gracias por comunicar su experiencia con nosotros oy!

Speaker 3:

Okay. Same thing. Thank you for sharing your experience with us today.

Marta Drobby:

Yes, and then…

Laura Gardner:

Maybe that question that was asked earlier, do you want to go to that one first?

Marta Droddy:

Maybe [inaudible 01:20:49] can come on with her question about how school systems can target registration and enroll and enrollment drives. If she doesn’t, I’ll just read the whole question.

 

Speaker 4:

Hi, I’m [inaudible 00:11:52] from Charles County Public Schools.

Speaker 4:

Hello.

Speaker 4:

Yes. This is an issue that we have in Charles County. It’s a new issue, fairly new in the last two or three years with a lot of different populations coming here to the county, and the registration of, especially the small children, the pre-K and kindergarten, it’s becoming a situation where we really have to find families in order to get the students registered and, enrolled in school. And it seems that the parents that I’ve spoken to are scared. They perhaps are here with undocumented, they are just scared of the system and they believe that we are the government. And I have heard from parents that think that they’re… they call me, I’m apparently [inaudible 01:21:45] and they ask me if their child is still at school, which, putting two and two together, they think that their child is going to be taken away.

Speaker 4:

It’s a scary situation, but that I was talking to my principal at my title one office here in the county about recruitment drives and using the community, the churches, the grocery stores and community centers in order to blanket it with social… With, with flyers and to also blanket social media in order to get those enrollment numbers up. So that is my question to Maria and Blanca and the others who are also here as to other suggestions that they might have with regards to targeting all families that come from foreign lands. Thank you very much, enjoying the conference. Thank you.

Laura Gardner:

Bianca. Do you want to try answering that?

Bianca Flores:

Yes. I think this is going on mostly with families after what’s been happening last year, where more families are coming. I think they are more afraid and the fear lies more on them. They confuse immigration with school, but what she was mentioning about putting up flyers, bringing information to community centers, I think that would work or maybe flyers adding the school’s information or where they can enroll. I think that would work. And I think it’s also part of what we need to do. We need to share information with them, letting them know that, that’s completely false. We can inform the newly arrived about those things, but I think those ideas are perfect. Information can be shared in community centers or even new students can receive flyers at the beginning of the year if they see the figures are not increasing.

Laura Gardner:

Maria, do you want to add anything to that?

Maria Marroquin:

[foreign language 00:15:19] Sorry. I was in the wrong channel. Even when we speak in different languages, we need to share information and parents need to lose that fear. Sorry. I lost the first part, but it was basically that.

Laura Gardner:

That’s okay. I also just to piggyback and add a little bit more too. I think one of the most important things for us as educators is to make sure we get connected to the community leaders. Whether that in some smaller towns, maybe that’s a pastor or something, but like I know in the, like in Prince George’s county, the indigenous Maya community has community leaders. Like there’s a whole structure kind of in place and you can reach out to certain people, but you have to kind of learn how they structure themselves. So I don’t know, that’s my thought. Way or Gloria, did you have anything to add? I think the level of fear that they were talking about is a lot related to being undocumented. I don’t know if you guys wanted to add anything.

Gloria Fagbemi:

So for me, I want to say like there’s you know, most Nigerians do come in fully documented for some reason, either like through professional visas and situations like that, but for the ones that are not, which I probably know a few, the same fear exists, right? Where you get information, conflict and information from different groups of people. One thing that I wanted to say is that I really believe in the programs that you lead and like that come into our church that…

Laura Gardner:

Uh oh. We froze, you there, Gloria?

Marta Droddy:

Until she gets back on. I just wanted to say that sometimes what we would do is we would do neighborhood visits.

Laura Gardner:

Oh, we got Gloria back.

Marta Droddy:

Oh, go ahead, Gloria.

Gloria Fagbemi:

I’m sorry. My beautiful internet.

Laura Gardner:

That’s okay. You started to say the programs that you do, and then I don’t know what.

Gloria Fagbemi:

But you know, the time I met you was through the leadership program. So my thing is if that can be replicated, not necessarily just using church, but like house events or home events, where, or even online events, zoom events, where you can continue sharing the information and we can cut down on the noise and then people will know, oh, like when they’re new people okay there’s this person I know who talks about X, Y, Z maybe they will be able to lead you in the right direction. Yeah.

Laura Gardner:

Awesome.

Laura Gardner:

Wei. Did you have anything you wanted to add to this part?

Wei Kuang:
Sorry. Yeah, I think I cannot do this question because I am not really understand. What is it? What the question is.

Laura Gardner:

Oh, okay. It’s okay. They’re basically just talking about how sometimes parents are scared to register their child in school, and sometimes they get a little bit nervous because they see the school as part of the government and kind of mix it up with the immigration authorities.

Wei Kuang:

Yeah, I heard this, this, but I don’t think, wait, how that’s problem.

Laura Gardner:

Okay.

Wei Kuang:

It’s not a big problem, I think that’d be a problem.

Laura Gardner:

All right. Thank you. Marta, I mean, I know we’re running. Do we have time for one more question? Maybe?

Marta Droddy:

Let’s try one more. Let’s try one more.

Laura Gardner:

Have any come in the chat box you can highlight.

Marta Droddy:

The only other thing was about ensuring that school systems provide interpretation with the qualified person so that the information does not get misinterpreted. I have, I ran into that myself in my job. Sometimes, and especially if you get things that are translated onto paper and is… to give the example of friend of mine did this and she was very proud of this paper that she was going to hand out to all the parents, but it turns out that what she was supposed to be saying, which was that it was a kindergarten benchmark. The wording that they used meant in Spanish, a giant pile of do, so sometimes when people translate things, they do it literally, or they use in some cases like I know with my own experience is what they call high English and not conversational English. Not everybody speaks high English, but they understand conversational English. It’s that same way in various languages also.

Laura Gardner:

Yeah. Well, I think we’re kind of out of time and I don’t see any more questions in the chat box. I just really wanted to thank all of the panelists. You all are extraordinary. I appreciate you being so open with us about your experiences with your children, your families, with COVID, some of the tough things you’ve been through and your honesty with us and how we as educators can better support families, Jessica, or Marta or anyone. Do we have any looks like we need everybody to do the survey for today?

Jessica Lim:

Yes. I just popped the link in the chat box. So if everyone can please fill out the survey, let us know what you think. This was a great session. And I know a lot of you, all of you think that too. So let us know about your comments in the survey. And I would like to thank Laura and Marta and all our amazing parents for this wonderful session and also our interpreters as well, since they helped bridge the gap. As we talked about interpretation, this is it. We’re practicing it right here. And thank you everyone for joining us. And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Laura Gardner:

Thank you everyone. And yes, thank you interpreters you guys rock. All right. Take care everybody. Bye. Bye.