From Deseret News archives:
Web users can pick language for Salt Lake school forms
Refugee influx creates need for the large variety
In Somali, it's "Waalidiinta Qaaliga ah."
Translation in English: "Dear Parents."
Those greetings begin letters to parents about English development programs available in the Salt Lake City School District.
The letters, and about 250 other documents the school district uses, are now available on the district's Web site, www.slc.k12.ut.us.
Online forms cover subjects like kindergarten orientation, HIV/AIDS education, fee notices to parents and a 12th grade graduation invitation. An immunization form is available in 14 languages, including Albanian, Arabic and Portuguese.
"We have students and families who speak all those languages," Salt Lake City district spokesman Jason Olsen said.
In all, more than 80 different languages and dialects are spoken in Salt Lake City schools — that's unique for "homogeneous" Utah, Olsen said.
A contributing factor to this growing need for translated forms is the fact that a large number of refugees enter Utah each year. Some come straight from refugee camps in Third World countries.
By one estimate, close to 30,000 refugees live along the Wasatch Front, with 1,000 more coming each year.
The problem facing some schools in Salt Lake City is that refugee parents show up at their doorstep without a mastery of the English language and try to get their children enrolled — but registration forms and documents on immunization, required before entering the public education system, are in English.
Utah has an official language law that requires government bodies to conduct their business with the public using English-only documents. Schools, however, are allowed to communicate with parents in whatever language necessary to aid in the education of their children (they are asked to encourage those parents to learn English).
Prior to putting the translated forms online, Salt Lake schools had to contact district officials, who then mailed or faxed the forms. Now, parents and schools can instantly access the forms via the Web.
"They won't have to wait for us," Olsen said.
Other school districts, like Jordan, have information on their Web sites translated into Spanish. Salt Lake City, though, has taken its forms services to a new level.
"I think we're one of the few that translates them into so many different types of languages," Olsen said.
Sol Prodan, the district's language translator supervisor, has seen more than 5,000 documents get translated in her seven years with Salt Lake City. She says making forms, letters and policies accessible for teachers, school administrators and parents via the Web ultimately improves communication between classroom and parents, "so parents know exactly what their kids are doing."
The hardest part, she added, has been finding educated, qualified translators to work on a part-time or contract basis. After all, Prodan only knows English, Spanish and a little Italian, French, German, Ukrainian and Portuguese.
E-MAIL: sspeckman@desnews.com
