Educators try to reach Hispanic students

Monday, Sept. 22, 2003 | 10:57 a.m.

At the end of Lunt Elementary School's first open house for parents in Las Vegas earlier this month, the mothers and fathers of the school's 650 students went home with more than an idea of what their children would be learning this year.

They also went home with brochures from the Mexican consulate, as well as a schedule for upcoming English classes. After all, English is the second language for most of the school's Hispanic families, 80 percent of total enrollment.

The school's efforts are a sign of things to come, say those who have studied the Hispanic population's growth in the Clark County School District -- now nearly a third of the district's estimated 267,000 students. In a bottom-up, grass-roots fashion, teachers and administrators see they have to go beyond the three R's in educating this population, often addressing issues they never would have had to confront as recently as 10 years ago.

"These projects are emerging in an experimental fashion ... with teachers and administrators doing it on their own initiative," said Aldo Aguirre, consultant in the school district's office of special education, elementary and secondary education and school improvement programs.

The efforts include bringing information about immigration law and English classes for parents into the school, because these issues are keys to teaching children how to read, write, add and subtract.

"(Teachers and administrators) are seeing that what happens in the classroom is very linked to the stability and continuity in the home ... (which) give students the disposition to come to the classroom to learn," Aguirre said.

At Lunt, the starting point for these projects was a trip Assistant Principal Carey W. Roybal-Benson took to Mexico this summer with four teachers. The trip was part of a class Roybal-Benson taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The class was dedicated to familiarizing teachers more with the homeland, culture and language of many of the district's students.

Roybal-Benson said the trip was an eye-opener for the small group and led them to be creative when they returned to Las Vegas.

He thought they should learn more about immigration law and the services the Mexican consulate could provide to many of the parents of Lunt's students, including the matricula consular, a form of identification the consulate provides immigrants. So he organized an early August meeting between the educators, Mexican Consul Berenice Rendon and Peter Ashman, head of the Nevada chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Ashman told them about legislation pending in Congress that could help undocumented immigrant high school students become citizens and pay in-state college tuition rates.

After the meeting, Villa and Roybal-Benson decided they would organize a similar one with the school's parents in the future.

"Many of the families here have fear about whether the consulate is a safe place to go," said Elena Villa, principal at Lunt, who also attended the meeting.

"We need them to come here and start talking to our families," she said.

Roybal-Benson also obtained a federal grant for an English as a Second Language class for fourth and fifth graders and two classes for parents -- one tailored to helping parents communicate with teachers, and another for helping parents read in English with their children.

Raye Jean Plehn, who teaches journalism at Palo Verde High School, also went to Mexico this summer. She now wants students working at the school newspaper to interview other students about immigrating to the United States as well as write about what it takes to become a citizen.

Villa, Roybal-Benson and Plehn realize that their efforts are not without controversy, but they say they the benefits outweigh the objections.

"The population has grown so much, it can no longer be ignored," said Villa, whose childhood memories include the sound of the principal's voice over the intercom every morning at her elementary school in Arizona threatening her and other students if they spoke Spanish at school.

"Our focus here is on the children ... and whatever it takes to educate them," she said.

Thomas Rodriguez, author of several books on Hispanics in Nevada and executive manager of the diversity and affirmative action programs office at the school district, said projects such as those at Lunt and Palo Verde help address high dropout rates and low test scores among Hispanics.

"You'd have to be blind not realize that there's a need beyond the traditional curriculum," he said.