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The K12Translate Family Gives Back

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010


All of us here at K12Translate and the viaLanguage family believe that ensuring language access through translation is really about building community. That’s what effective communication makes possible. I guess you could say we sort of have a community-minded focus just by virtue of the work we do.

So, it would just seem to make sense that we feel a natural desire to give back. And I wanted to take this post to applaud all the people in the K12Translate family, and beyond, who find the time and make the effort to give back during the year. Cheers to all of you!

Are you looking for some philanthropic ideas for your company? Here are few organizations and efforts we support:

  • Humane Society – One paid day is donated to each employee to support their favorite non-profit organization. The company also offers an annual team volunteer opportunity. This year it’s the Humane Society—because pets are also part of the community!
  • Operation Cornbread – We support Sisters of the Road Café in Portland, Ore., as part of that organization’s annual matching program, Operation Cornbread, which keeps food coming to the needy during the peak summer months.
  • Annual Translation Grants - We offer in-kind translation grants for organizations reaching out to limited English proficient (LEP) communities, both Healthcare and K12.
  • Heifer International – We provide annual support to a needy family by purchasing and donating a cow. Learn more about this unique program in an earlier post by viaLanguage.

As the Oregon Lottery once said, though I paraphrase, “Your odds of winning are 550,000 to one—significantly higher than if you don’t play.” And it’s the same with making a difference. Act and you can help.

Keep Learning & Keep Giving Back!
Leslie
K12Translate

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Perhaps PPS Can Be a Lesson to All School Districts

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010


I came across an interesting story right from K12Translate’s home state (and city!) of Portland, Oregon. As reported by KATU News, a local Latina activist by the name of Marta Guembes went undercover to investigate Portland Public Schools’ progress in communicating with non-English speaking parents.

Just last year, PPS was required by the state Department of Education to improve communication with non-English speaking parents in order to meet state and federal laws. With 10 percent of the PPS parent population not speaking English, and over 72 languages represented, Guembes set out to see if the district was making strides towards better communication with these populations.

Guembes, undercover as a Spanish-speaking immigrant, called 85 Portland schools over two days. As you can read in her report, the results were not favorable as over one-third of the schools called provided no assistance or information to her, simply responding with “no español.” The remaining schools, according to Guembes, did “not meet the protocol” either.

Now we at K12Translate are big fans of school districts in any state, and we truly understand and appreciate the many barriers there are to providing language access to increasingly diverse student and parent populations. With budgets drastically shrinking, and classrooms rapidly growing, achieving this is challenging at best. But with a bit of planning and the right translation tools and teams, not being another lesson like PPS is possible, and very worth it.

Keep Learning!
Leslie
K12Translate

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A Boost to Help Build the Home-School Connection

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010


We at K12Translate believe that bridging the language gap is key to improving and increasing parental involvement of your ESL/ELL students. To further this cause and support schools or districts pursuing similar initiatives, we are excited to announce our first annual K12 Translation Grant Program! This unique, in-kind donation program will award a total of $2000 in translations to schools or districts meeting the eligibility requirements. The deadline is June 15th, 2010 so visit the K12 Translation Grant Program page now to apply!

Best of luck, and keep learning!
Leslie
K12Translate

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Michelle Obama highlights the necessity of K12 ELL education and effective language translation services

Thursday, June 4th, 2009


Michelle Obama’s recent commencement speech at the University of California – Merced is remarkable in many ways. But the most striking element is that instead of speaking at a well-established school such as Harvard or Stanford, Ms. Obama chose UC-Merced, a little-known, four-year-old university with a diverse student population made up of 40.3 percent underrepresented ethnic or racial groups. Many of these students are immigrants or come from English Language Learning (ELL) immigrant families.

Ms. Obama’s choice highlights a growing education trend in the United States. This emerging movement recognizes and provides high-quality education to a widely diverse population who speaks many languages and maintains distinctive cultures. This makes sense when you consider that between 1990 and 2000, non-white ethnic populations jumped from 23 percent to 30 percent and are commonly expected to account for over half the U.S. population by 2050.

During the early K12 years, ELL students and parents thrive in culturally sensitive environments that provide language translation services and embrace differences. These same students enroll in schools like the University of California – Merced, schools that celebrate our nation’s diversity.

Just ask the First Lady where our youth is headed.

Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate

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Welcome to the inaugural post of K12Translate’s new blog!

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009


At K12Translate our mission is to facilitate clear communication through language translation services. That’s our reason for being. As an online education translation company, every day we help our school districts to say what they mean.

It sounds simple, but as anyone who works with English Language Learning (ELL) communities knows, things can get complicated pretty quickly. And the consequences of failing to be understood can be enormous, even catastrophic.

This is perhaps nowhere more true than in the field of education. School districts and state boards of education have to be able to communicate with the communities they serve, and in a culturally sensitive way. So much depends on it.

That’s how the K12Translate Education Blog was born. It seemed the perfect way for us to share the kinds of education translation challenges our clients face — and some possible solutions for helping ensure that they, and you, send the right message, every time.

Look for new posts each week. So come on back.

To New Beginnings!
Maggie Nickles, Program Manager

 

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