AB 590 (Solorio): Expanding Opportunities for LEP Parent Involvement
Nurturing meaningful parent involvement must be a key component in efforts to close the academic achievement gap and secure educational equity. Research illustrates that active and involved parents contribute to successful student performance and school participation. However, of California’s 6.3 million public school students, 2.7 million, or nearly 43 percent, speak a primary language other than English at home. For this significant population of students, language barriers prevent communication between their parents and educators about important matters such as academic performance, school programs and services, standardized testing, and disciplinary codes, resulting in a detrimental impact on students’ success in education.
AB 590 (Solorio) is needed to expand opportunities for limited English proficient parents to be involved in their children’s education. The provision of oral interpretation services is needed at critical school events involving parents, such as parent-teacher conferences, disciplinary proceedings, and suspension/expulsion hearings. AB 590 would provide matching grants to a pilot of school districts so that they can develop infrastructure for involving limited-English proficient parents. School districts would outline their approach in a competitive application process for the funding, and an evaluation would assess and measure the impact of the services to improve parental involvement.
More information on AB 590 (Solorio) is provided in the RESOURCES section, at right.