Parents upset over school district’s Spanish language services in Sanger. ‘They don’t care’
At Sanger Unified board meetings, only English is spoken, leaving many in the predominantly Latino community feeling powerless like they have no voice.
“I don’t understand anything,” Justina Rosales, a mother of six Sanger Unified students, said in Spanish during a recent interview with The Bee.
Though 70% of the district’s more than 11,000 students are Latino and many primarily speak Spanish at home, Sanger Unified doesn’t provide interpreters without a special request made at least 48 hours beforehand. The district also doesn’t provide simultaneous translation devices at board meetings.
And while many California school districts don’t automatically provide interpretation or translations services at school board meetings, Sanger Unified has been criticized for its communication with Spanish-speaking families on important issues, like when the district cut multiple school bus stops with little notice to parents.
The district, according to Superintendent Adela Jones, has a need-based approach to what it provides at what events and meetings.
But Olga Loza, a community organizer for the Dolores Huerta Foundation, said that’s unacceptable.
“You need to be prepared to receive those parents,” she said earlier this school year about the predominantly Latino community. “They need to be able to understand everything.”
Of Sanger Unified’s 11,091 students, 7,847 ( 70%) are Hispanic, based on 2021 state data. A little over 15% are English learners; 12% are Spanish speakers, Ed Data says.
The meetings should be accessible to every parent, Loza argued, and such resources should be regularly available without a special request.
“There are parents who don’t understand any English,” Loza said.
That includes Rosales from Chilapa in the Mexican state of Guerrero and Florinda Rodríguez from Miahuatlán de Porfirio Díaz in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
When parents don’t understand, Rosales said, they’re unaware of issues and district decisions affecting their children and they can’t voice their concerns.
“How can we raise our voices if we don’t speak English?”
Interpreters available by request
An interpreter comes to board meetings as often as requested, according to Rocio Gurrola, the district’s migrant and homeless specialist who translated the public comment section based on parent requests at an Aug. 23 meeting filled with remarks on busing changes.
Gurrola did the same during the next meeting at the district’s request.
The public comment section, not the entire meeting, is the only part that is required, by law, to be translated, Jones said in an interview with The Bee’s Education Lab.
Even without requests and when there are no interpreters present during the meeting, there is always a Sanger Unified employee who speaks Spanish if the need arises for a translation, Cary Catalano, the district’s spokesperson, said.
“I want to know what the others are saying, what their opinions are,” Rodríguez, a mother of three, said in Spanish, “Communication is important for us to understand them (the district), and for them to understand us.”
Without interpreters to communicate on parents’ and the district’s behalf throughout meetings, Rodríguez said she feels like Sanger Unified doesn’t care about students’ families.
“How are they going to understand us without one?” she said. “It shows that they don’t care to listen to what we have to say because we speak Spanish. If they cared to listen, they would have an interpreter to help translate everything that the district says and what we want to say.”
Latino students are the majority at many Fresno-area districts, including 69% in Fresno Unified, 39% at Clovis Unified and 60% in Central Unified, all lower percentages than Sanger’s Hispanic student population.
Fresno Unified projects live Spanish translations on a screen for its Latino audience and has a Spanish interpreter at meetings if a Spanish speaker wants to participate in public comments. Neither Clovis Unified nor Central Unified offer live translations, but Central Unified, like Fresno, has a Spanish interpreter at every board meeting.
Clovis Unified’s available interpreters are present on an “as needed” basis due to the district’s minimal number of requests for translation services.
Clovis Unified and Central Unified post or stream their board meetings on YouTube, which offers translation features for viewers.
In Sanger Unified, the lack of interpreters and services makes Spanish-speaking families hesitant about attending district meetings, Rodríguez said.
“Because of this, many others (Spanish speakers) wonder why they should go to these meetings if no one can understand them,” she discussed. “They ask, ‘If they can’t understand us and it’s all done in English, then why go?’”
Sanger Unified Trustee Va Her told the Ed Lab this was the first he’s heard of these concerns from parents, although he said he supports the idea of having a Spanish interpreter present at every board meeting.
“The reality is, we live in a very diverse community,” he said. “If that is of a concern, then we, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, should be able to provide that and make sure it’s readily available, whether it’s used or not.”
He noted that he’s still only one board member and that making a change like this would require other trustees’ and district administrators’ support.
None of Sanger Unified’s other elected board members responded to the Education Lab’s request for comment about the district’s services.
‘When you don’t understand…’
Loza said school districts should have an interpreter and simultaneous hearing equipment that allows listeners to hear a clear translation in real time.
Sanger Unified has that simultaneous hearing technology that allows people to put headsets on to hear live translations. But that tech isn’t available at board meetings.
According to district administration, the technology is available at meetings that have more parents present — “meetings that are inclusive of all of our parents,” the superintendent said.
The translation devices are used during the Local Control and Accountability Plan Guidance Committee meetings, where there are large numbers of Spanish-speaking parents. Regular school board meeting attendance is harder to predict.
Regardless of meeting attendance, Sanger Unified has a high percentage of Spanish-speaking families. The state requires schools to provide written materials in other languages if they serve non-English speaking populations that are more than 15%. Deputy Superintendent Tim Lopez said that 15% is based on the number of parents who identify their primary language as something other than English.
Fourteen of 20 Sanger schools qualify for needed translations. Of those 14, 10 schools have a percentage of more than 25%. Wilson Elementary, Jefferson Elementary, Kings River High and Lincoln Elementary have some of the highest percentages – above 45% – of families whose primary language is Spanish.
The district even offers adult education classes for English as a second language for its families.
Rosales and Rodríguez said they struggled to learn English through Sanger Unified’s programs. They said they experienced teachers not meeting them at their level, being switched between classes and/or having to stop to work in the fields.
“We have to work to pay rent, to pay for meals … and so, learning English becomes complicated,” Rosales said.
So to Loza, it’s not that school leaders don’t know and understand that Latino families are the majority and see their need for support.
“They know we are the majority, and we can do something if we just learn,” she said. “People in the Latino community are going to fight and ask for change in this community, and leaders don’t want that.
“When you don’t understand, you don’t fight.”
Earlier this school year, Sanger Unified cut multiple school bus stops with little notice to parents, many of whom are field workers who said they now choose between providing for their family financially or getting their children to school.
As a field worker, Rosales couldn’t work during grape harvesting season because her children’s bus routes were canceled. Instead of work, she picks up and drops off her child at Washington Academic Middle and three students at Jefferson Elementary while facilitating public transportation for her two high schoolers.
“Because we didn’t know and weren’t informed, when we heard about the service being canceled it was too late,” she said.
At the time, community members said the district’s limited information was exclusively in English.
Despite the anger and frustration parents expressed, the district hasn’t returned the bus stops, saying doing so would violate the district’s transportation policy. All eliminated bus stops were “courtesy” stops the district was never legally required to provide. The district insisted the changes are consistent for all families.
“The use of power like that, it can’t go unchecked,” Rosales said. “That’s why we’re going to meetings now.”
But those meetings are still places where Rosales and Rodríguez don’t understand anything and can’t use their voices.
“I feel powerless,” Rodríguez said, “because we cannot exactly express how we feel.”
The Ed Lab’s Julianna Morano contributed to this report.
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