Clarke Central High School senior Shahrzad Roshan (left), family engagement specialist Wesley Mellina (middle) and English department co-chair Ian Altman (right) lead the first Bilingual Parent Program meeting, which took place on Oct. 24. Roshan, who came up with the idea for the program, hopes it will benefit the CCHS community. “I just want this to be a place where people can find friends,” Roshan said. “My mom (and I) both really struggled with finding friends (when we moved here in 2015), and I just thought that this would help other people know that they’re not alone.” Photo by Ana Aldridge.
Note: Jorge Somilleda was interviewed in Spanish. His quotes were translated by the author, who is bilingual.
The first Clarke Central High School Bilingual Parent Program meeting was held on Oct. 24 in Room 229, where the group brainstormed and discussed what future meetings will consist of.
The first Bilingual Parent Program meeting was held on Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. In attendance were seven Clarke Central High School parents, three students and two staff members. Heading the meeting were senior Shahrzad Roshan and English department co-chair Ian Altman.
Roshan originally came up with the idea for the program and is working with Altman and family engagement specialist Wesley Mellina to make her idea a reality.
According to flyers distributed by Roshan, the program is intended to be “a discussion-based English meeting for bilingual parents and students,” and is open to individuals with any level of ability in speaking English.
“I mean, I’ve done so much work with immigrant students, helping immigrant students attain access to college, but I’ve also felt for a long time that immigrant students’ parents are often marginalized in this school space, and as I tried to make clear in the meeting to those parents, this, as a public school, belongs to them – in a very literal way- this is their school,” Altman said. “So they should feel welcome here and feel confident enough to talk to anyone that works here.”
CCHS parent Jorge Somilleda, who was in attendance, hopes that the meetings will help him in his everyday use of English.
“Well, this first meeting was for us to agree on how we’re gonna start the classes, and I hope it’ll help me a lot because I lack writing, reading and speaking skills,” Somilleda said. “(I need help speaking) in my everyday life, all day at work, hospitals, school (and) talking with my kids because they laugh when I say something in English, so I have to go to classes where they’re going to help me instead of laughing.”
Senior and Bilingual Parent Program translator Anapaula Saucedo attended the event as well and helped translate it for Somilleda, who is a native Spanish speaker.
“I heard about (the meeting) from (Roshan) and she (asked) me if I could come and help out and I was like ‘Sure, no problem.’ I came in here and (Somilleda) was the only guy here and I asked if he knew English and he was like ‘No,’ so I helped him,” Saucedo said. “Knowing the struggle my parents went through and knowing I could help out another parent (is what) brought me here because I know how much my parents struggled learning English.”
Somilleda feels that efforts such as these are necessary to bring the CCHS community together as a whole.
“I think it happens to all of us that because we can’t communicate in the language, we can’t collaborate with the school and participate with our kids,” Somilleda said. “It’s because of the language that we can’t talk openly and it excludes and disconnects us from the school.”
Mellina, Altman and Roshan continue working to increase attendance in future meetings.
“We put it in the announcements, we also have family engagement newsletters, we use the remind app if parents have signed up for that,” Mellina said. “We (also) reached out to district translator (Alex Borges) and he’s taken flyers and he says he has parents who come to register their students who are interested in events like this, so he’s gonna try to like talk to those parents and also just spread the flyers out into the community.”
The group plans to meet every other Tuesday, with its next meeting coming up on Nov. 7 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in room 229.
“(The first meeting) was small, but I thought it was very positive. I thought the reception was enthusiastic and I’m definitely looking forward to helping the program grow, to bringing in more and more parents because I think there are a lot that could use something like this,” Altman said.
