Andrew Friedman

Immigrant parents and students win big

This morning, immigrant parents and advocates joined with Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein, Speaker Quinn and Council Members Monserrate, Jackson, Yassky, Arroyo, Liu, and Seabrook to announce the expansion of language assistance services for limited English proficient parents.

After months of wrangling over the Education Equity Act, parents, advocates, the City Council and the Bloomberg Administration have come together and agreed to increase funding for the Department of Education's (DOE) Translation and Interpretation Services Unit and to increase the requirements on both schools and the DOE to provide language assistance services to parents who need them. Mayor Bloomberg announced new Chancellor’s regulations that require much of what was required by the Education Equity Act.

This expanded initiative to ensure meaningful parental participation for hundreds of thousands of immigrant will benefit one out of every four New York City schoolchildren. Parents and advocates fought hard for these policy changes, but, today, they thanked Council Member Monserrate, Speaker Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg for making their vision of a more equitable City a reality.

Catalina Martinez, a Make the Road by Walking member and an immigrant mother spoke at this morning's press conference. She said,

I am a mother of a boy who is in seventh grade at IS 93 in Queens. I value education a lot and I want the best for my son. I want to help my son succeed at school. I want to collaborate with his teachers to be sure that he is doing his homework and making academic progress.

Until today, I have not been able to understand or participate in my son’s education because of a lack of translation and interpretation services at his school. There are thousands upon thousands of immigrant parents, like me, who want to work with the Department of Education to ensure the success of our children, but who have not been able to because of language barriers. It has been a loss for our children and for New York City.

Today, I feel very happy that Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education are taking steps to eliminate language barriers and to guarantee that every parent in the city has the oportunity to support their child to succeed at school. These new regulations requiere translation and interpretation services for parents who are still in the process of learning English. Also, the Mayor is committing to invest more money in the Translation and Interpretation Services Unit of the Department of Education. Finally, the Mayor is committing to continue to work together, with parents, with immigrant organizations, and with the City Council to guanantee equal opportunity for our children.

We would not be here today if immigrant mothers and fathers had not organized to demand the opportunity to be involved in our children’s education. We would not be here today if we had not had the strong support of Councilman Monserrate who backed us up since we began this struggle. We would not be here today without the commitment and work of Speaker Quinn, who made this important agreement with Mayor Bloomberg possible. We would not be here today if the Mayor did not have a real commitment to parental involvement in the public schools and to the equality of all New Yorkers.

As a mother, I feel proud of what we have achieved together. What a joy that the next time I go to my son’s school, I will not feel the fear, the frustration and the humiliation that I have felt in the past. Our children’s future is very important, both for them and for our city. This new initiative will help our children to realize their aspirations. I want to again recognize the contribution and work of our elected officials: Councilman Monserrate, Speaker Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg for making our vision of a more equitable city a reality.

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Posted at 2:30 PM, Feb 27, 2006 in Civil Rights
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