Friday, February 18, 2011

Medford Distrito Escolar foro presupuesto sólo en español

[roughly translated... English not welcome]

Mail Tribune --

from a recommendation of the advisory committee and in an effort to reach out to Medford's Latino population which comprises nearly 21% of Medford's 12,500 member student body, the upcoming school district budget forum will be held entirely in Spanish.

"it will give us a chance to hear from a part of the community that doesn't always have a voice," said Medford school Superintendent Phil Long. "We have made really more of a concerted effort to reach parents who don't speak English as their first language but have kids in our schools. They are part of our community, and we want to make sure we hear from them."


Long commented that it could be very intimidating for non-English speakers to speak at public forums even though there is a translator available.

I wonder if they're going to provide an English interpreter?

Probably not...

The bureaucracy might look at it as discrimination.

3 comments:

OregonGuy said...

I feel your pain.

(Raspy "Clinton" voice.)
.

Anonymous said...

Robin,

Putting this in the right perspective...

According to the article you link to, this is the fourth public budget forum this month. The first three were in English.

The article does not say "the upcoming school district budget forum will be held entirely in Spanish.". What is says is "the district will for the first time conduct a public forum today on the budget entirely in Spanish."

Your misquote makes it sound like Spanish is being used instead of English. In fact, in this case, Spanish is being used in addition to English ( three forums in English and one in Spanish ).

I've noticed a tendency among so called conservatives recently to try to make a point by misquoting or taking facts out of context. When you do that you damage your own credibility and integrity.

Robin said...

"Your misquote makes it sound like Spanish is being used instead of English. In fact, in this case, Spanish is being used in addition to English ( three forums in English and one in Spanish )."

thank you for agreeing with me... and that's the whole point.