(Ed. note — This is a follow-up post to last Saturday’s “Opinion: School assignment plan lost in translation.”)

by Flo Beaumon

After my article was posted on the Beacon Hill Blog, I heard that a fellow Beacon Hill International School parent had seen translated materials about the Student Assignment Plan. I contacted her, and she said she had handed them out at one of the community information meetings, and they’d had interpreters, too. She referred me to Bernardo Ruiz, who is the Family and Community Engagement Manager. I wrote to him and heard back the next day, a thorough answer. To make a long story short, he said, “The following link will take you to the website where these translations have been posted and are available: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/newassign/resources.html.”

I looked, and backtracked to see how one would get there. I found that someone would first go to the New Student Assignment button, which is big and bright on the home page. That would take them to a page entirely in English. They would need to know somehow that “Learn More”, which is one of 15 generic-looking small buttons, would lead to the translations. Very most likely, one would come to the conclusion, as did I, that the info is not available. I suggested to Mr. Ruiz that they not hide the translations under pages of nothing but English and an undescriptive label, and then I asked him if he’d please tell the District office where to tell callers to find it.

He wrote back right away, saying that he’d talk to the English Language Learner Department about posting these materials more accessibly in their website. And he said, “Also, I will talk to our Customer Service Department to ensure that we provide accurate information to our families and stakeholders.”

Where was this guy when I was looking for him?

(Do you have an opinion about a Beacon Hill issue? We are always interested in opinion posts from the community. Send us your thoughts at blog@beaconhill.seattle.wa.us.)