WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Light is shed on the Latino and Hispanic students at Winston-Salem Forsyth County schools just two days from the first day of school.
Winston Salem Forsyth County schools are making a commitment to focus more on the educational success of Spanish-speaking students.
Julie Wilson is the executive director of Open Arms Community. She tutors Spanish speak students through the organizations.
“The reality of children here in Forsyth County faced with limited ELL resources I know we can do much better by these students,” Wilson said.
Superintendent Tricia McManus said better is what WS/FC schools plan to do.
“Thank you the Latino Congress for lifting concerns and issues and suggestions that can allow us to work better with our Latino students,” McManus said.
McManus and the North Carolina Congress of Latino Organizations addressed a crowd of Latino families at Shattalon Church Saturday to lay out their joint efforts to remove language barriers heading into the 2022 school year.
“We have a lot of work to do but I'm excited to talk about progress today,” MacManus said.
Here’s a breakdown of the progress McManus talked about:
- All elementary school front offices will have family support assistants for Spanish-speaking families.
- Faithaction ID’s are now available to all families who don’t have documentation.
- Plans for a newcomer center to help recently arrived Latino families.
- The district is looking to sponsor visas for international teachers to come to teach in their schools.
McManus said they already hired some bilingual educators by partnering with bilingual organizations.
“We hired nine people on Aug. 9 on the spot for different positions, McManus said."And 17 employees to be family support assistants."
29 % of WS/FCS students are Hispanic, while just 4 % of teachers are.
"Our goal is to mirror our student population which means we will not rest and we will be aggressive until 29 % of our workforce are Latino Spanish speakers," McManus said.
WS/FCS has one of the highest Hispanic student populations in the Triad.
29 %of Alamance Burlington students are Hispanic, 17 %of Guilford County school students, and just 12 %of Davidson County students.
Karolni Jimenez is a Hispanic mom with a daughter heading to second grade in Forsyth.
Their family is bilingual, but she said she does her part to help her friends who aren’t good with English.
“Right now I’m trying to support my friend she doesn’t speak much English she understands more than she speaks so I have been trying to help her with all this,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez said she hopes the district continues on a path that ensures students' academic success.
"Definitely more personnel involved In the school and not for the parent-teacher meetings but also have something specifically for Latinos not because we are special but we need the Latino community to be involved in schools,” Jimenez said.
The district is currently looking to fill several bilingual positions. Click here to see openings.