Many bilingual staff in Fort Worth schools get extra pay. Why is this group left out?

At McLean Middle School, counselor Morris Adams said he works flexibly and seamlessly with his assistant principal to serve students and their Spanish-speaking parents.

Since Adams is bilingual, he’s often the contact point for these parents. He connects with parents over the phone, works with other counselors when they have language needs and drafts letters and other communications.

If Adams weren’t bilingual, an administrative clerk could act as a translator. Bilingual clerks receive bonuses for their language skills.

But Adams, who connects with about half a dozen Spanish-speaking parents a day, receives no extra compensation for his dual language abilities.

As Fort Worth schools begin a new school year, counselors like Adams are asking the district to pay them for their bilingual skills, which they say are critical in connecting with the predominantly Hispanic communities they serve.

“We have the population to support the need,” he said.

Double the work

During a June 28 school board meeting, where trustees discussed and finalized the upcoming school year’s budget and employee pay, multiple counselors asked district officials to provide a stipend for being bilingual.

Counselor Itzia Oscos told the trustee that she wants to see counselors’ pay reflect their skills.

“Employees’ commitment and loyalty depend on feeling cared about and supported by their employer,” she told the board.

The Fort Worth school district is a majority Hispanic district. It served about 48,000 Hispanic or Latino students in the 2021-2022 school year, well over half its student population.

A number of positions within the district receive a stipend of between $450 to $4,000 a year for their bilingual skills, including clerks and teachers.

Oscos said bilingual Fort Worth teachers, administrators, assistant principals and diagnosticians also receive a stipend.

The district’s online compensation plan for 2021-2022 does not specifically mention stipends for those positions, but Adams said assistant principals receive stipends that are tied to them being bilingual education certified.

He said he would like for the stipend to be given in recognition of bilingual abilities and not tied to being bilingual certified.

District spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment.

Counselor Moraima Rivas said bilingual counselors have more duties than their monolingual counterparts, including writing documents in English and Spanish, creating guiding lessons in both languages and translating any lesson not available in the target language.

She said they conduct a variety of meetings in both languages, and she personally translated the entire fifth-grade planning guide for sixth-grade course selection for parents. These tasks essentially double their work, she said.

Rivas had previously received a stipend as a bilingual teacher.

“Why not as a bilingual counselor?” she asked the board on June 28. “When my credentials and duties have increased.”

Counselor Maria Jones said the skills of bilingual counselors are used for letters, fliers, emails and communication to connect administrators, teachers and students with parents.

She said the impact of losing her stipend when she moved from being a teacher to a counselor was less about the money and more about the validation of one of her strongest skills.

Importance of counselors after COVID

Becky Taylor, a counseling professor at TCU, said the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unique challenges for counselors. She said the state of mental health and mental health access was bad before the pandemic, but kids were one of the most poorly served groups once the pandemic hit.

Taylor said school counselors don’t do long-term therapy, but are tasked with a lot of prevention and intervention efforts. She said anxiety disorders have become a major issue for young people.

Adams, the counselor at McLean Middle School, said he’s talked through anxiety problems with students to determine any next steps and talked with parents about behavioral problems going on at home.

He said that in the past year, some students refused to get out of the car when they got to school, which Adams believes was because they had been home for so long during COVID.

He said because he’s bilingual, he was able to talk it out with the parent and the student and get them comfortable with joining the school day. Adams said he’s also dealt with students who are depressed or young boys who are trying to get out of gangs.

Taylor said more counselors of color and those that can speak Spanish are needed to break down language barriers.

Counselors are also helping deal with the academic setbacks caused by the pandemic and in some cases cover classes for teachers who are absent because of a shortage of substitute teachers.

“Right now, counselors, they are valuable,” Taylor said. “... They need them everywhere.”

Support from trustees

School board trustees voiced support for a potential counselor stipend during the June 28 meeting.

Trustee Camille Rodriguez asked Chief Talent Officer Raúl Peña if there was any stipend plan in the proposed salary package.

Peña said a potential stipend can be reviewed with the Texas Association of School Boards and may be brought to the board in the upcoming months.

Trustee Roxanne Martinez said she hopes the district can consider those stipends soon.

“Being bilingual is an asset at every level and in every role in our district,” she said. “... They’ve been doing the work and deserve to be compensated.”

Adams, who has been with the district for 18 years, said he loves working at Fort Worth schools and hopes that the stipend can be approved to make the district more competitive in attracting and retaining much-needed bilingual counselors.

“Things like that make one feel appreciated,” he said. “It is morale boosting.”