Daddio,
This is a BIG issue for our school as well. At times, it feels impossible to bridge the socio-economic barriers that exist in our small school of 430. Some things that have helped us...
* EVERYTHING is translated. It takes time, it costs money... but it's definitly worth the resources.
* Making a conscious effort to create family nights that appeal to our diverse population... Cinco De Mayo has become a tradition at our school. Another example, at Pajama Reading Night, we made sure that some of the stories were read in Spanish.
* Personally asking people has been the best approach. Even if I have to have someone translate for me, I've found that many parents, Hispanic or Caucasian, are just waiting to be asked!
I'd love to see this conversation continue to develop. I believe that this is an important issue facing many of our schools... maybe together we can come up with some unique solutions!
Best of luck with whatever you do...
Kelley Kirkpatrick-Berg
Madison PTO President
Mount Vernon, WA
We have a similar problem, currently we only have info in 2 languages (English and Spanish), although we have families in our school that speak Japanese, Farsee, Ukrainian, Swedish, and a few more Arabic (Middle Eastern).
We're trying to do a Heritage Mo (instead of African American-Spanish heritage mo's- the only 2 on lots of calendars)
and like above post a Cultural Nite/ Potluck/ PTA Mtg.
The only other suggestion is talk, talk, talk and let them know they're welcome (to volunteer, attend, or just hang).
<font size=""1""><font color="#"black"">Liberalism is not an affilation its a curable disease. </font></font><br /><br><font color="#"gray"">~Wisdom of Shawnshuefus</font><br /><br><font color="#"blue""><font size=""1"">The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is...
We are 98.5% white according the last census. Most of the religion is the same too. Like I've said before we are your typical Mayberry town. But I do have a suggestions. It could be in left field but I will give it a shot:
Why not have culture nights along with your meetings? If you have a group that is rich in culture with food, have a potluck. Have them to talk about some of the foods they like and explain why that is important to them. Also if you have a group that celebrates holidays that is not widely recognized in your area you could have them to put on a celebration and talk about the history of that holiday (one that comes to mind would be "Cinco De Maya").
Do you have problems with families who do not speak English very well? Perhaps you could get a translator to help with meetings?
At our elementary school, we have a diverse student population of close to 900 kids. We have an open invitation for anyone to join our group. Word of mouth and fliers that come home announce our membership meetings and events, but parent involvement is no where near what we would like. At times, our general membership meetings have had just 5 people (new). The lack of events by the teachers at our school hurts parent involvement. They just seem to not wanna do anything after their tour of duty.
Anyway, I addressed the diversity problem with our principal, who happens to be an African-American woman. She has noticed this as well. While it is not done intentionally, our group is predominantly white. We cannot just go out and force people to join our group just because of the color of their skin. Like I said, we welcome anyone who wants to help.
Have any of you had this problem and if so, what have you done to help it along?
