The Parent Academy for Student Success makes its first debut at Kent-Meridian High School on Tuesday, Oct. 7.
“It’s designed to educate parents of our students at Kent-Meridian who do not speak English and possibly don’t understand how school works in the United States,” said K-M campus manager Debbie Theisen.
The class was conceived as a way to help Kent’s diverse population — as well as those who are new to the school system — navigate American public education.
The nine weeks of classes will teach parents of K-M students how to navigate the school system. Classes will vary from teaching parents about how to use the district’s Skyward student information system to what to know about where their child should be each year.
The 90-minute classes will be taught in the 10 most spoken languages in the school, including English, Somali, Ukrainian and Nepalese to make them more accessible. K-M has 71 languages spoken in the student body.
The school has coordinated day care and transportation for the classes, now all they need are students.
Because it is marketed at non-English speakers, Theisen has had a hard time getting the word out about PASA.
“The first thing that we did was we told our staff about it, and explained it at things like the PTA meetings, and it’s on the website,” Theisen said. “But it’s really difficult for the parents to understand if we don’t do it in their language.”
To work on getting the word out, Theisen has been searching for “recruiters” — bilingual workers who can man a phone and dial student family numbers to recruit family members for PASA. She’s hoping to reach out to the Kent Community for those who would be willing to work five hours a week on phone calls and would be compensated at around $18 per hour. All that’s needed is to call the number and speak to the family member using a script.
“Finding the recruiters has been very difficult, because we don’t speak the language,” she said.
Ideal candidates would be existing bilingual parents of K-M students who can talk to prospective students in their own language and relay the importance of the classes.
Applicants for the class or recruiters can call Theisen at 253-373-7416 for more information, or apply at the district office or high school.
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