School’s efforts to help growing number of hispanic students

A Charleston county school received national attention for it’s efforts to improve learning for the growing number of hispanic students. Midland Park Elementary was featured on NBC Nightly News.
 
The school has 760 students, of that number 48-percent are hispanic.  Principal Robert Candillo has been the leader of the school for the past four years.  He says, “We are rapidly growing in our spanish population.  Which is a huge change from ten years ago. Where this school may have been predominately caucasian and African American, the make-up of the school has changed now so that half the school is represented by hispanic students.“

As a result of that increase, Midland Park has hired a translator to help communicate with families.  Candillo says, “Her primary job is to translate comments on report cards on progress reports.  She translates homework.  The teachers submit their homework to her, she translates and sends it home. Many of our hispanic parents want to be very involved in the schools, so we had to come up with ways they could be involved, so our translator helps to bridge that gap.“  Principal Candillo says all school documents are sent home to parents in both english and spanish.  The school also uses textbooks and resource books in spanish.  Candillo says, “We had to find new curriculum, or new text books or new ways of presenting content,  because we are held accountable to the same standards that all schools are held accountable for.“  The school also uses technology like internet based software and smart boards to help build english and math skills.  To improve communication among students, all of them, beginning with child development take a spanish class.

While a few teachers speak spanish, others do not.  Some are enrolled in classes to help lift language barriers.  Midland Park partners with the College of Charleston, which allows staff members to receive “English for Speakers of Other Language” certification. Teacher Andrea Gregg says, “I didn’t know any spanish. These students are going to come to me with limited english, but when I got here, there were so many resources available.  Even with the language barrier, we’re gaining that understanding of each other and gaining the concepts that they need in order to succeed in school.“

Principal Candillo says he expects the numbers to climb.  He says, “Every year it increases by about 5 to 10 percent.  So we’re looking at huge jumps especially over the last few years, so I have every reason to believe, we’ll be well over the 50-percent mark next year.“