North Carolina bilingual school secretary loses job for translating for Spanish-speaking parents

[kpete]

We're told that was the original intent of hiring Ana Mateo as a bilingual secretary at Devonshire Elementary School in North Carolina -- until a new principal arrived. It seems the new principal didn't like Spanish spoken on campus by anyone, especially a school employee.

It didn't matter if parents came to the office trying to do the correct thing by getting informed or alerting the school to changes in their children's routines, the new principal and the assistant principal didn't just forbid Mateo from speaking Spanish to the parents but told Mateo that her resignation was accepted, though Mateo never offered it.

To Mateo's credit, she continued speaking to the parents in Spanish, relaying much needed information to them. Mateo's defiance didn't go over very well with the new principal and the assistant principal who subsequently fired her for insubordination.

So, now Mateo has filed a lawsuit after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, after eight months, responded to a complaint filed by Mateo and wrote that her civil rights were violated.

more:
http://www.latinalista.net/palabrafinal/2010/02/north_carolina_bilingual_school_secretar.html

[babylonsister]

1. I am so glad she filed a lawsuit. Rec'd, with particular disgust at

the ignorant principal. :mad:

[RevCheesehead]

2. The schoolboard needs to fire that principal.

What's Spanish for "asshole"?

[WolverineDG]

6. culo nt

[RevCheesehead]

7. LOL!

Somehow, I was thinking of you when I wrote that!! :rofl:

[1monster]

12. pendejo

[tonysam]

13. Never happen. He has a job for life.

n/t

[juno jones]

16. Frankly he sounds more like a ' pinche pendejo' to me...

ie: roughly translated as 'prick'.

[niyad]

3. un-f******-believable. if I were in that district, I would be campaigning for that principal to be

fired.

what in the hell is the matter with these people?

[TheDebbieDee]

4. What possible frikkin' sense does it make for school

administration to get rid of the only means to communicate with the students' parents?

[tsuki]

8. So they can complain about how uncooperative the parents are.

[arthritisR_US]

11. none at all unless you're a narrow minded bigot, which it sounds the 2 are! n/t

[ddeclue]

5. I hope she sued him personally TOO and got several million from that bas-turd.

[mzteris]

9. here's irony for ya

From the school's website:

"Devonshire Elementary School's theme, "Academy of Cultural and Academic Diversity", focuses on the various academic programs that are in place to reach students from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Devonshire has special programs and activities such as quarterly honor-roll/character education ceremonies, bilingual Girl Scouts, Devonshire Investment Club (DIG), and chess club."

The Mission of Devonshire Elementary Academy of Cultural and Academic Diversity is to develop confident, self-directed, life-long learners who are mastering the development skills essential for successfully managing their lives and contributing to the quality of the life in a diverse society. "


Year Total Afr. Amer. Asian Hispanic Amer.Indian MultiRacial White Male Female LEP Paid Lunch F/R Lunch Students With Disabilities

2008 574 57.3 3.3 35.0 0.3 2.6 1.4 53.8 46.2 34.1 7.0 93.0 15.3
2007 503 60.4 3.6 31.8 0.2 2.2 1.8 58.4 41.6 31.8 7.8 92.2 17.3
2006 522 62.8 2.7 30.5 0.4 2.5 1.1 57.1 42.9 26.2 8.2 91.8 15.5

[RainDog]

10. I'M SO SICK OF THE FUCKING STUPIDITY! FIRE THAT IDIOT PRINCIPAL!

my kids were lucky b/c they got to go to a public school in a university town with kids from 39 other nations. kids got to take spanish, french and even chinese language lessons if they wanted to.

as a child of the south, I feel sorry for kids who have to go to school there and deal with the daily stupidity of the religious right and the palin-con morons.

[ORDagnabbit]

14. its not a matter of taking classes... if somebody comes to a country they need to actively learn the

language.

It should be the parents responsibility to learn english not the school district to provide an interpreter.

If you moved to Germany or Mexico would the schools there have a specific person just for interpreting for you? Its a waste of money and resources.

[Leftist Agitator]

15. "If you moved to Germany or Mexico would the schools there have a specific person..."

"...just for interpreting for you?"

Well, if 35% of the students at that hypothetical Mexican or German school spoke English, then yeah, they probably would.

But that's not what's at issue here... Nobody demanded the hiring of an interpreter, and in fact, no interpreter was hired. This teacher, who was hired TO TEACH, happens to be bilingual in Spanish and English.

Now do you want to tell me what in the flying fuck is wrong with a teacher communicating with students in a language other than English? Does she deserve to be fired because the bigots in her school either don't like the idea of "them damned furriners" or that they're too goddamned stupid to learn Spanish themselves?

No, seriously, I want to hear exactly why this teacher deserved to be fired for speaking Spanish with Spanish-speaking parents and students.

This oughta be good...

[ORDagnabbit]

18. take it up with North Carolina laws.

North Carolina General Statutes § 145-12 State language
§145-12

(a) Purpose. English is the common language of the people of the United States of America and the State of North Carolina. This section is intended to preserve, protect and strengthen the English language, and not to supersede any of the rights guaranteed to the people by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of North Carolina.

(b) English as the Official Language of North Carolina. English is the official language of the State of North Carolina.

[RainDog]

20. so fucking what?

the idiotic principal asked a teacher to resign because SHE WAS TRYING TO HELP STUDENTS. How? By making sure their parents understood things.

The teacher was not trying to deny that English is the official language of NC or any other such bullshit inbred southern paranoia.

If a state has an "official language" are you so stupid that you think that means people are not allowed to speak any other language in a professional capacity, especially and not limited to ones that help families assimilate into the culture of the region in which they reside?

Luckily NC has the excellent research triangle area that is changing the level of ignorance in the state.

[Bill McBlueState]

21. lol

That's your comeback? Oh, man.

[TalkingDog]

22. That's right. And our state bird is the Cardinal.

We are required to shoot any other birds we see on sight.

I'll tell you something, those damned humming birds are so fast we had to start toting Uzis.

:eyes:

[Blue_Tires]

33. citing that law is irrelevant

for starters, it's just feel-good xenophobic legislation...I remember a similar "english only" law for business signs that the City of Atlanta tried to push back in the 90s, and it was an epic disaster...

secondly, the only POSSIBLE legal scope the law could apply to are state government-related matters

[Leftist Agitator]

36. So, do tell...

Where exactly does it say in North Carolina General Statutes § 145-12, "Though shalt not speak any other language in this state or its public institutions under pain of unemployment?" I'll take any language to that effect. Hell, even language to that end from another part of the N.C. code will suffice, I assure you.

Again, this should be good.

[juno jones]

17. Most Germans speak English.

One of the benefits of their scholastic system.

[KonaKane]

19. It helps that English is a Germanic language

[tblue37]

24. Doesn't help a bit. Although English started out as a dialect of Old Low German,

its vocabulary is now 60% Latin or Latin through French, with enormous numbers of other words from other languages sprinkled all through it.

Furthermore, German is an analytical language, which means that it depends heavily on inflection (rather than word order) to convey meaning. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) was also an analytical language, but since the Norman French invasion in 1066, the English language has undergone drastic change--not just in vocabulary, but also in grammatical structure (including the disappearance of many of the inflections the language once had). When you study Old English in school now, you study it as a foreign language (as I did when I was a graduate student in English).

Although our language's Germanic roots mean that we have quite a few cognates with German, the two languages are mutually unintelligible. We also have a lot of cognates with Spanish, but that doesn't mean that anyone who speaks Spanish will easily understand English.

[KonaKane]

32. Sure it does. Ask a German.

I used to go to Germany frequently back in the 90s and many of them told me English was easy for them to pick up because of its proximity to their native tongue.

[LeftishBrit]

23. No; but most professionals, at least in Germany, would know English anyway.

At any rate: it's one thing not to provide a specific person for interpreting; another to FIRE someone who chooses to interpret for you.

[liberation]

25. Oh, I was wondering when the first poster who tried to blame the victims was going to show up...

... funny thing though, most gringos did not bother to learn Spanish when we took over basically HALF of Mexico. Which is among other things, the reason why in the USA there is NO F*CKING OFFICIAL LANGUAGE. Unlike Mexico, or Germany. Heck, those gringo illegal aliens in Texas used the pretest that Mexican officials were, among other things, expecting them to speak in Spanish as one of the excuses they used for the whole going ape shit at the Alamo thing.


I am also sure all those Mexican parents would love to learn English if they did not have to work 3 jobs for shit pay just to make ends meet. But how dare they bother your pretty little mind for not daring to learn English while they sleep (which is basically about the only occasion a lot of these people would have the time and resources to learn English). Right?

[Bette Noir]

26. So the parents should be frozen out of all communication with their

children's school until they learn? Even if there are already people on staff who could communicate with them, but aren't allowed to?

No school employee should be fired for talking with a student's parents.

[NOLALady]

30. Just as

the Europeans learned to speak the language of the Natives of this country.

[Blue_Tires]

31. That has NOTHING to do with this woman losing her job...and you know it

What? Should the principal have looked the two well-meaning parents in the eye and screamed "SPEAK ENGLISH YOU GODDAMNED IMMIGRANTS!!"

[JanMichael]

27. From the school's website: (seriously, check this shit out)

Devonshire Elementary School's theme, "Academy of Cultural and Academic Diversity", focuses on the various academic programs that are in place to reach students from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Devonshire has special programs and activities such as quarterly honor-roll/character education ceremonies, bilingual Girl Scouts, Devonshire Investment Club (DIG), and chess club.

http://pages.cms.k12.nc.us/devonshire/

[KonaKane]

35. Somebody lost touch with the Mission Statement, didn't they.

[mitchum]

28. Those who can't teach administrate

[Stuckinthebush]

29. That's not true

and is offensive.

This one administrator is an idiot. The same administrator was probably an idiot as a teacher.

Some of the best and brightest become administrators as well. Don't use such a broad brush.

[mitchum]

37. I long for the day I will meet the extraordinary administrators you have encountered

I believe they must be out there

[Stuckinthebush]

38. Come meet my students

I teach a number of amazing administrators.

[DeSwiss]

34. What makes it all so much worse.....

...is that this all started because the secretary was talking to a frantic parent whose son had come home from school after a having a stick pushed into his buttocks.

"During September 2008, a Spanish-speaking parent came to the school crying and stating in Spanish that someone at the school had placed a stick in her seven-year-old son's buttocks," the suit says. "(Mateo) asked Ms. Gimenez if she could translate for the parent. Ms. Gimenez refused and told the parent her seven-year-old son could translate. The parent continued to cry and eventually left without having her issue resolved because she could not understand Ms. Gimenez's responses."

The suit says after an encounter with another distraught parent who could not communicate, Gimenez "screamed at (Mateo) that she could not speak Spanish to any parents."

Mateo was sent to a conference room, the suit says, where Assistant Principal Kimberly Vaught told Mateo she knew Mateo could empathize with the parents because she "crossed the border just like them." Mateo, who is described in the suit as a U.S. citizen who is "Hispanic/Nicaraguan," said that was not true.

During that encounter, the suit says, Mateo told administrators she thought they were violating her civil rights, and Gimenez told her to "follow her policy of no Spanish speaking or she could leave." After Mateo complained to CMS's human resources office, she was told she couldn't return to Devonshire unless she agreed to the no-Spanish policy in writing, and was told she would not be transferred to another school, according to the suit.

After Mateo was "effectively terminated" on Sept. 24, 2008, the EEOC interviewed witnesses and reported that their evidence supported Mateo's report of discrimination, according to an EEOC letter included with the suit.

MORE: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/1230320.html

This principal was chosen to administer at this school to "turn it around":

CMS has a large international population; 10,700 of the 133,700 students come from homes where English isn't the first language. Almost 16 percent of all students - more than 21,000 kids - are Latino.

The district generally prides itself on accommodating Spanish-speaking families. Schools and the district often translate materials that are sent home, and events for families often have Spanish translators provided by CMS. More than 15 of the district's "Parent University" classes are offered in Spanish, including one on legal rights and responding to discrimination.

The Equity Committee, a group of volunteers appointed by the school board, spent the past year studying services for students and families who don't speak English well. In a report that will be presented Tuesday, that panel urges CMS to hire more bilingual "parent advocates" who can translate, noting that "parent involvement and parent support are key to a student's academic success." That report says nothing about schools refusing to let bilingual staff speak Spanish with parents.

Superintendent Peter Gorman sent Gimenez to Devonshire in summer 2008 as one of seven principals piloting his "strategic staffing" turnaround effort. Those principals, who make a three-year commitment to boost academic performance, get a 10 percent pay bump and money to recruit high-performing teachers.

Henry said Gimenez is married to a Latino but is not Hispanic herself.

MORE: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/1230320.html

- K&R