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PROGRAM PRACTICE:
Provide Information in Multiple Languages Via an Automated Telephone Line
To provide non-English-speaking parents the same access to information as English-speaking parents receive, Minneapolis Public Schools created a telephone information line that provides choice and emergency recorded messages in Hmong, Somali, and Spanish. The program was implemented as a cost-effective option to written translated materials for communicating with parents who could neither speak nor read English.
The information line not only relays to diverse communities choice-related information such as choice application deadlines and special choice events, it also offers emergency notices such as weather-related school closures. Thus, the information line must be updated regularly if it is to be useful. Technically, the information line is easy to set up; however, major costs occur when translating the choice information into various languages. MPS plans to make the information line interactive during its next upgrade. This will allow parents to speak to someone in their own language, widening the access to choice and emergency information to non-English-speaking parents and further reducing communication barriers for those who are not literate.
MPS advertises the information line primarily through word of mouth when English as a Second Language Department staff, community liaisons, and other district departments network in the community. Other advertising includes flyers inserted in choice mailings, “business cards” distributed at the school fair and other events, and district website information.
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