MANCHESTER – In a first for the Manchester School District, language interpretation was offered at all of its high school graduation ceremonies this year.
Language interpretation is part of many school events, but until now it had not been offered widely at graduations. While the groundwork for such an offering has been building for years, the actual request to make it happen this year only came in the final, stressful weeks before graduation.
“While we have not provided language interpretation at graduations in the past, when we discussed the idea, it was obvious this was something we needed to offer,” said Superintendent Jennifer Chmiel Gillis. “Wendy Perron, our Executive Director of English Learner Instruction, dove right in and began to recruit staff and come up with a technological solution. Her team delivered for our families on this big day and we could not be more proud of them.”
The need is clear for interpretation at events such as this. The number of families whose primary language is not English is increasing, and even if parents and guardians speak English, that may not be true for extended family members. Offering interpretation opens up events to those who might not have attended in the past.
“Language access is very important to our commitment to equity,” Perron said. “Our team is always looking for ways to improve and expand our multilingual communications and our multilingual family liaisons were more than ready to jump in and help.”
Language offerings varied by school and were informed by our student information data and our Liaisons. Based on home languages for students, Perron built a team that would provide interpretation of up to seven languages, including Spanish, Swahili, Lingala, Kinyarwanda, Arabic, Portuguese and French. The team included 11 district staff members, with an additional 4 interpreters from Lugha Translation Services. The district staff members who took part included liaisons Paul Godoy, Carmen Polo, Fernando Martinez-Cisneros, Jenn Wilson, Bahera Shukuru, Hamisi Juma, Belyse Wizeye, Amina Chiboub, Bruna Machado, and Andrea Howarth, along with Central social worker Amadou Hamady.
“Our liaisons serve as a critical link between schools and families,” Perron said. “Yes, they offer interpretation and translation, but more importantly, they build and sustain meaningful connections with students and their families to support engagement and overall student success. Offering this at a graduation allows them to do what they do every day – support our families and help them engage in their students’ education.”
When the district offers live, simultaneous interpretation at smaller events, it’s typically done in one of two ways. In the first, the interpreter sits with the person in need of assistance and translates face to face. In the second, the interpreter uses a wireless, head-set based system that allows up 200 people to access live interpretation across 10 languages.
“We knew for an event as large as graduation, we would need a digital solution that was also easy for families and guests to access” Perron said. “We opted to organize a live stream that family members could join using their own mobile phones. The SNHU Arena set us up with high speed internet and a quiet suite for the live stream and we were off and running.”