Parents & Caregivers are an important part of a child’s education! Our schools should communicate with families—in their language—about their child’s education. This often includes translated documents and a language interpreter for meetings and conversations. Families have the right to these services even if they speak some English and even if their child can speak or read in English.
Evergreen Public Schools is dedicated to fostering equitable access and meaningful communication for all families, particularly those with limited English proficiency, through a comprehensive Language Access Program that promotes inclusion, transparency, and responsive community engagement.
Our department’s purpose is to ensure equity through Language Access services. Language access refers to ensuring that individuals with limited proficiency in the dominant language of a community or organization have equitable access to information, services, and opportunities provided by that entity. This includes providing interpretation and translation services to facilitate effective communication and engagement. We need language access to:
Ensure equal access to education, healthcare, legal services, and other essential public services.
Respect linguistic diversity and support inclusion within diverse communities.
Empower individuals and families to fully participate in and contribute to society.
Comply with legal requirements that mandate equitable access to services regardless of language proficiency.
Build trust and strengthen relationships by communicating effectively with all community members.
The EPS promise for Family and Community states we will engage, listen, and value input from our community. We keep lines of communication open so that we can try to understand one another.
Our vision is that language access enables empowerment for our linguistically diverse families so that we work in partnership in support of student success.
Language Services can be accessed in a variety of ways:
In person and video Interpretation - If you need an interpreter, please contact your child's school and ask for the interpreter in your preferred language.
Phone Interpretation - Call any staff member and ask for an interpreter in your preferred language and they can connect you.
Document Translation - Vital documents are translated as needed and requested, subject to language population and size. Please request through your child's school.
Ask for the Instant Language Assistant at your school - You will find this tool at every school, it uses machine translation and supports over 100 languages.
ParentSquare offers two-way translation in over 100 languages that translates messages from the sender to the recipient in each parents’ preferred language. Parents are in control of the language in which they receive communications ParentSquare information
Resources available:
Access to Linguist Link Platform for requesting interpretation and translation services in advance
Instructions for how to access phone and virtual on demand interpretation
Instructions for how to use the ILA - the Instant Language Assistant - at your school
Best practice information for language services and using an interpreter in meetings
Links to policy and procedure language
Parents have the right to receive important information from schools in a language they can understand. Evergreen Public Schools (EPS) must provide interpretation and translation services, when needed, to communicate with parents and families.
For more information please contract Tricia Harding, Language Access Coordinator at tricia.harding@evergreenps.org or language.access@evergreenps.org
Evergreen Public Schools is committed to providing access to all individuals seeking information on our website.
Please note that EPS uses Google Translate to provide translations for informational purposes only. This tool is not intended to replace human translation. It is an automated service that cannot translate all types of document formats, and it might not provide precise or accurate information.
Information is translated by selecting a language from the drop-down menu in the webpage. Google Translate relies on data and technology.