New Bedford schools are supposed to provide K’iché translation services. How it's going.

NEW BEDFORD — Superintendent Thomas Anderson said the district's work with the U.S. Department of Justice on ensuring language services are in compliance with federal law is going smoothly, as New Bedford Public Schools fulfills its end of a settlement agreement.

The district entered into the three-year agreement with the DOJ on Sept. 15 after a two-year investigation found New Bedford Public Schools to be non-compliant with federal law relative to a lack of translation services geared toward speakers of K’iché — a language spoken by many residents of Latin American descent.

Anderson outlined the progress made so far in fulfilling the terms of the agreement for the School Committee earlier this month.

"We’ve fulfilled all of the obligations thus far in terms of having documents translated, making sure we have the correct number of staff in the locations where they’re needed," Anderson said.

According to the presentation, as of the School Committee's Feb. 13 meeting, the district had hired four full-time translators and 13 part-time to help fulfill language service needs.

Where things stand with K’iché translation services

On Nov. 15, the district submitted its first required reports, including those on data relating to English learner students and limited English proficient parents, and translation/interpretation requests; as well as five district-wide professional development plans entailing over 100 hours of programming for various audiences, including clerks, mentors/mentees, school administrators, teachers and guidance counselors.

As of the presentation, 55 staff members had graduated from a 30-hour UMass course on translation/interpretation.

According to NBPS Executive Director of Educational Access & Pathways Dr. Sonia Walmsley, as of Feb. 22 the district had received requests for 304 oral interpretations and 302 written translations in K’iché since Sept. 28.

Get the background:DOJ settlement agreement: New Bedford schools must better address K'iche' speakers' needs

Anderson: District was ahead of curve on record-keeping, teacher observation

Anderson said some of the "bigger lifts" for the district in fulfilling the agreement involve officializing its record-keeping for submission to the DOJ, "making sure that we’re maintaining electronically … and the hard copies of the documents that we’re receiving...."

"The monitoring of the reports, the meetings, evaluating the effectiveness of the school program — again, those are areas that we ... were doing," Anderson said, noting the DOJ acknowledged during a visit that much of that work was already taking place in schools. "Now it’s just making sure we’re ... following through and tweaking the work to ensure that it is having the desired impact that we need to have on our students."

Another part of the agreement is that core teachers will be observed once a year and evaluated in areas such as student engagement, adapting content and culturally responsive learning. Responding to a question from School Committee member Ross Grace, Anderson said observations will be performed by internal district staff.

"Our team has already put together those look-fors over the last actually four to five years, so that isn’t any different," Anderson said.

The district has also developed five subcommittees on different areas of focus: Registration & Language Identification, Technology & Data, Educational Translation & Interpretation, Educator Development, and Professional Development.

See more school news from New Bedford:New Bedford's Anderson loses bid for Newton superintendent job

What's ahead?

"Next steps" as outlined in the presentation were: professional development "refreshers" that started in January to continue into February, teacher observations set for February-April, and English learner plan monitoring and "learning walks" that began in January to continue into May. The district will submit end-of-year reporting to the DOJ in June.

In terms of the nature of interactions with the DOJ, Anderson said they've been positive.

"I may be going too far and stretching to say it’s a partnership because they are the Department of Justice and it’s an accountability, but we do work well with them…," he said.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: New Bedford schools on course with K'iche' DOJ settlement