If your school district receives funds and grants to make sure material is translated to serve Limited English Proficiency parents and students, it makes sense to focus your attention and translation budget on the languages that are spoken the most in your district in order to make the best use of those funds. A good rule of thumb when considering languages you should translate into is whether or not there is a population of 5% within a community. Look at the demographics of your community so that you concentrate on the top two or three immigrant and refugee languages that are most represented in your area. If one of these languages is Spanish, for example, even though there may be many countries represented in your immigrant population, it can save money to translate material into a neutral form of Spanish instead of translating the material twice into “Mexican Spanish” or “Cuban Spanish”, for example.

Keep in mind that the demographics of your community might suddenly change during the year due to such factors as an influx of new refugees who may require Somali translation or Burmese translation. If you budget for a few different languages, you will be able to switch the focus to another language if a population grows. If a population happens to decrease, you could use the extra budget allotment to providing more in-depth translated information to another population instead.

Keep Learning!
Maggie