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When Alfonso Flores used to get report cards for his oldest son, he didn’t understand exactly what they were telling him. Was his son doing well? Where could he improve?
The Heber City parent has lived in Utah for more than 20 years, but he grew up in Mexico. Unfamiliar with the U.S. grading system, he laughed remembering how he would just trust his son to tell him how he was doing in school.
“I mean, I remember being a kid and I just was a punk,” Flores said.
When his youngest daughter started at Timpanogos Middle School in Heber City, Flores got involved with “Padres y Madres Líderes” or the Latino Parent Leaders.
Yuri Jenson started the group a couple of years ago. Jenson is the school’s family and community engagement coordinator and a liaison for Spanish-speaking families. She estimates there are at least 60 parents who volunteer and about 40 who sometimes participate in the group’s events.
There are monthly meetings in Spanish where parents learn about what’s going on in the school, the community and how to support their children. Flores said language is often the biggest barrier preventing Latino parents from getting more involved at school.
For him, the program also made him less intimidated by the school system and teachers.
“It has made me more confident to approach them and ask questions,” Flores said. “For example, I didn't have a clue how the math grades worked until I started coming here. And then I figured out, ‘Oh, that's how it works.’ And what I was expecting from my kids was totally different.”
Flores thinks this has helped his kids because it makes them more accountable. And sometimes, “it even makes it more fun because now [my kids] know that, ‘Oh, my dad understands what's happening and so we can work together.’”
Flores has worked as a court interpreter, so he translated for fellow Timpanogos parent Nybrinis Hernandez, who spoke in Spanish. When Hernandez immigrated to Park City from Colombia a few years ago, she worried about all of the changes she was navigating and how they would affect her kids.
She wanted to be involved when they first started school in Park City but it was difficult.
“At the beginning when I came here I didn't understand anything,” Hernandez said
After her family moved to Heber City, her eighth-grade son started at Timpanogos Middle. That’s where Hernandez met Jenson and told her about all of her concerns and challenges.
“[Jenson] told me that by getting involved with this program [Latino Parent Leaders] I was going to be more confident, and I was going to be more understanding of how I can help my kids,” Hernandez recalled.
Now, she feels confident she can help her kids “solve any issues they have.” She also has a relationship with the school, something she didn’t have before.
“I have a direct involvement with the activities that the kids are having in here,” Hernandez said.
Parents from the group can also train to become official school volunteers, who can be seen walking around the campus in black shirts with “Padres Líderes” or “Madres Líderes” stamped in yellow on the back.
Now, Hernandez said she can help others who “may have those same fears [she once had] to overcome it.”.
One parent told Jenson their kid feels “proud” whenever their parent wears a volunteer shirt.
Viridiana Hernandez, who is from Mexico and the parent of an eighth-grade student, recently attended a meeting for the first time. Even though she was a newcomer, she said her daughter already feels more supported at school since there are adults around who speak Spanish.
Marcela Duran, a Colombian with an eighth-grader, echoed similar thoughts, saying this program has made her kid feel safer and more confident at school.
While Hispanic students make up 19% of the school, similar to statewide student numbers, Principal Jim Judd said this parent volunteer base is “easily four times as big” as his non-Latino parent network.
“Any principal would just be so overwhelmed to have that many parents willing to come in and do whatever is asked,” Judd said. “It's just, it's just heartwarming.”
At the March meeting, Judd thanked the parents for all the work they’ve done and said it benefited all students, pointing to higher test scores.
“Because you’re showing your kids that you’re involved, you’re invested, you care that they do well. And anytime one student does better in school, that means in 10 years, in 20 years, our whole community is going to be doing better,” Judd said.
Flores noted how important programs like this are since the number of Latino students in Utah public schools will only keep increasing.
“As more people come, having that knowledge and having, kind of like, more training for those parents, it will just be beneficial for the kids,” Flores said.
