Through the use of a translator, Virginia Garcia, a mother of three, begged the Prince George’s County school board Feb. 25 to consider reinstating bilingual parent liaisons next year.
“We have a bilingual woman in our school who does us the favor of translating between students, parents and teachers,” Garcia said, referring to the parent liaison at Charles Carroll Middle School in New Carrollton. “If you remove this service we, the Hispanic community, will be negatively affected.”
The school board approved a $1.66 billion budget Saturday, which is a $45 million decrease in funding from the current budget. Due to budget constraints, about 1,800 full-time school employees have been laid off over the last three years and 800 additional layoffs were approved by the board Saturday for next fiscal year, which begins in July.
When the parent liaison position was created three years ago, a liaison was assigned to each county school full-time to bridge the communication gap between parents and administration.
