Advocacy and Language Access

Core Team meeting: Advocacy focus

An advocacy coordinator from another PTSA shared practices.

Language access bill passed last year and going into effect next year. Some regulations are around providing interpretation and translation for families for specific meetings

Talking w/ Hawthorne EL (English Learner) director and families to find out:

The group discussed assessing translation quality and family experience.

Really caring about a specific issue is the most important (as opposed to knowing how everything works in the legislative process)

SCPTSA D7 (Seattle Council PTSA District 7) group w/ SPS Board Director Hersey formed shortly after pandemic began and met weekly for almost 2 years- do kids have laptops? Lunch services? Reps from SPS would come to meetings, such as the Director of Culinary Services. This was a group very representative of District 7. People were feeling heard. Discussions were happening around solutions, and not just sharing frustrations. Keeping up that momentum was difficult, and since kids went back to in-person, regular meetings have not been taking place. Now in the phase of “how do we advocate for the whole community when not everyone is at the table, and how do you reach those who aren’t? How do you advocate for everyone?”

Katie recommends:

Having a regular connection w/ family support worker (FSW)

SESSFA

Language access groups- Open Doors

OSPI (Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction)

Crosscut article from April 2022

Take Back PTA

What Hawthorne is involved with:

Language access

Safety (e.g. can the door locks be replaced so they can be locked from the inside and not outside only?)

Classroom daily snack (Emerson used some of their SESSFA funds to provide snacks for classrooms this school year; Emerson is interested in collaborating with other schools in the future)

Bill trackers in SCPTSA & WA state PTA newsletters

One approach was to send brief family action emails on bills.

Transparency from SPS on what they do with state funds

The group discussed family-support staffing and advocacy needs.

An invitation was extended to collaborate with the other school's advocacy team.

Advocacy work is overwhelming, so narrow the focus

Building relationships to do this work is a key theme that came up throughout meeting.

Question to ponder:

How do we enfold advocacy issues into gatherings/events already happening (MaT; AANHPI March 31 gathering)

Tracey shared this video as we closed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjutWPTA4wo