Education Week - February 16, 2022 - 31

terminology, the jargon, ... you're going to be a little
bit uncomfortable and lost. Add to that the burden of
maybe you don't have the level of education, maybe
you don't speak the language, maybe you don't have
this system in your country to begin with. "
Her department is so involved in special education
that some language-access specialists have attended
more IEP meetings than other educators in the district,
providing them with a wealth of experience and
knowledge that helps them put families at ease during
difficult conversations.
And to make the process even more accessible,
Sager worked with the special education department
to develop a Multilingual Special Education Family
Toolkit, which is a set of cards with universal graphics
and plain language that walks families through the
special education process. The tool kit, which launched
in February 2020, consists of a special education
overview, a road map for the evaluation and IEP
process, eligibility cards that describe all the disability
categories in the district, and cards describing available
placement and services.
" When we utilize the tool kit with families whose
primary language is not English, it helps the family
conceptualize the process of special education visually
and also helps them be part of the team and create
meaningful participation, " said Velásquez, who was one
of the special education department staff who came up
with the concept. " It can be very difficult and confusing
looking at a stack of papers and being asked to sign and
put an X in the box, especially if you don't understand
what is going to happen next. The tool kit is the beginning
of a way to make things visual. "
The tool kit also makes the special education
identification process a little less scary, Sager said.
She was recently in a special education meeting with a
family who spoke Mayan and a little Spanish. Their child
had been receiving special education services for four years,
but when the mother read one of the cards in the tool kit,
she started crying, saying, " So this is what my kid has? All
this time, I thought what's going on was way worse. "
" It was a moment that was so grounding for
everybody, " Sager said.
A culture of listening and responding
Sager's colleagues say that she's created a culture
where it's not acceptable to send out any materials
to parents that are not available in the five districtsupported
languages. At times during the pandemic,
district staff wanted to send out urgent missives to
families before the translations were ready. But Sager
is adamant: " We cannot release anything until it's
translated, " she said. " If that means to wait another hour
or two hours, then we do it and we do it right, because
everyone is equally important, and we need to make sure
they have that content. "
Last year, Sager surveyed community members to
understand what they needed from the district. She
learned that most immigrant and refugee families were
accessing the internet on their phones. They found
the images and videos on the district's main website
to be distracting and were frustrated when they had to
download PDFs on their phones because they didn't
know where the file went.
In response, Sager's department created a resources
and family-support website that's available in English,
Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, and Somali.
It's bare bones, with no pictures or graphics. The
website lets families select their child's school and see
the available academic supports, social-emotional
supports, and family supports, which can include
transportation and school meals. There are social
media share buttons for each resource, including
one for WhatsApp, the messaging app that's popular
among immigrant communities.
Parents love it, Sager said, because it gives them
all the information they need in a way that's easy to
understand and access. She's working to create a new
section for community resources, like clothing drives and
rental assistance.
That kind of collaborative, responsive approach to
language-access services is essential to the district's equity
goals, said Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero. NonEnglish-speaking
parents, he said, need to feel supported
and prioritized, just as native English speakers do.
" It's not just translating documents, it's actually hitting
the streets and making sure that families, wherever
they're at, are aware " of the resources available to them,
Guerrero said. " Marifer is a tenacious advocate for
non-native English-speaking families and communities.
She consistently reminds us that the vision that we
have for our school district applies to every student
and family. I appreciate that she sees her work not as a
transactional exercise, but that fundamentally, it's about
empowerment. "
Sager's long-term goal is to expand the number of
district-supported languages so that more parents are
empowered to advocate for their children. To do so,
she will have to contend with limited resources and
competing district priorities-but Sager's passion for the
work drives her, as does her memory of what it was like
living in a place where she didn't speak the language.
" I see the opportunity to transform a system, " she
said. " Imagine that mom who wasn't able to understand
what was happening [with her child receiving special
education services] and how that dynamic changed at
home [after she learned the truth]. It was something so
little that we're doing-in reality, we could be doing so
much more-and just that little thing created that big of
an impact.
" I think of the families that come to the website and
say, 'Oh, I was able to understand-my school does have
mental health services, and now my student can receive
those services.' I mean, honestly, it's transformative.
There's no other word for me. " n
Coverage of strategies for advancing the opportunities for students
most in need, including those from low-income families and
communities, is supported by a grant from the Walton Family
Foundation, at www.waltonk12.org. Education Week retains sole
editorial control over the content of this coverage.
leaders.edweek.org | 31
Where
they are
now
Christie-Jo
Adams
Coordinator, K-12 Arts
Education, Richmond
Public Schools,
Richmond, Va.
Year Honored: 2019
Expertise: Integrating
Arts Instruction
Highlights: Published
" The Arts as a School
Motivator " in the October
2021 edition of School
Administrator magazine;
successfully completed
a $1.3 million arts
integration grant from
the federal Education
Department to support
the district's Turnaround
Arts schools.
" As a leader, it is my
job to take people's
passion and help them
find a pathway to their
purpose. Leaders must
be fair, authentic, and
brave. "
Eman Mohammed for Education Week
http://www.waltonk12.org http://leaders.edweek.org
Education Week - February 16, 2022

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