Parents’ Disconnection with Foothill

The administration has heard of other requests by students, particularly to assist their own parents’ experiences in being part of the Foothill community, but have not done anything regarding these requests. For example, some students have brought up the need to have a Spanish-speaking staff member in the office.

Most Spanish-speaking parents that call the office are usually forwarded to Counselor Juana Vega or Guzik, but they are often occupied with teaching and other matters. The inability to find anyone else to communicate with creates a disconnection between the Spanish-speaking parents and the school as they don’t feel like they belong. This is detrimental as parents are a backbone for the school; they assist in events and donate to the school. How can a parent be part of a community they can’t connect to?

For a homework assignment, Soriano’s sister was required to get a letter written by her parents. However, since her parents can’t write English, the sister “had to write her own letter.”

“It’s so sad because they can’t write it for her,” Jocelyn emotionally tells the story. “I felt so bad for her.”

Soriano had to get Guzik to translate for her parents at a banquet held on campus which “they really liked.” However, Guzik couldn’t be there the whole ceremony, “so they were confused and didn’t know what was going on.”

This caused them to feel “like they didn’t belong there,” and they didn’t “want to go the second year.”

“It’s not even just us; our parents are feeling the same,” Soriano elaborated.

They hope that there is a solution found so that no parent should feel left out.