increased scrutiny

You are constantly under increased scrutiny from TEA and the Feds about reaching out to non-English speaking parents and households. What can you do to demonstrate to all of these agencies that you are making a solid effort at reaching out to Spanish-speaking households in your district?

Have you been able to generate tangible proof of your efforts that can be maintained and shown during an audit or when applying for funding? Maintaining tangible, visible proof that you’ve made a strong effort can be a real challenge. Relying on family visits from local staff, most of whom do not speak proper Spanish and are not familiar with the same vocabulary as the Mexican immigrant, hardly provides visible evidence for use in a report, funding application, or audit.

We can help get you an A+ when audited on your Spanish language outreach.

getting cooperation & support from parents

More students in our area come from Spanish speaking homes each year and yet what have we done to ensure that well meaning parents know what we expect? Are you expecting a child, pre-teen, or teenager to sit down and translate your student handbook, conduct guide, or orientation booklet for their parents? Would they even if they had the skill?

Almost all Spanish speaking households in our area are of a Mexican background. And, believe it or not, locally spoken Spanglish, or Tex-Mex, differs significantly from the Spanish spoken in Mexico in both grammar and vocabulary. A funny example is that even the State of Texas in its official translations renames 'Texas' to 'Tejas' - something you'll never see in a Mexican textbook or government document. Texas is Texas in Mexico just as Mexico is Mexico in the U.S.

grievance hearings & liability

More than your school-to-parent and school-to-student documents need professional attention. Do you really want to invest time and money in a grievance hearing only to have your case thrown out because you didn’t provide the grievance forms and instructions in a language the parent could understand? The list of similar cases is almost endless but the solution is simple and we provide it.

funding exists now

Migrant funds and other resources are readily available for, and applicable to, the service we provide to help you reach out to Spanish-speaking parents of Mexican heritage. Other programs and grants are also applicable.

unique opportunity to do it right

Whether it is your Student Handbook, Code of Conduct with all local insertions, registration packets, ISS and DEP placement letters, we can put you firmly in compliance. Our translations help you to help well-meaning parents better understand how they can best work with you to provide a better education for their children.

We know how to translate your key documents into culturally and grammatically correct Spanish. And we know how to use a vocabulary which will provide families from Mexico with effective communications and with which they will be comfortable.

Additionally, for those who don’t read, we’ll even provide a spoken versions of your documents on CD they can play in their stereo!

extraordinarily qualified

Our firm is especially qualified to help schools properly translate their documents into the Spanish best understood by immigrants from Mexico. Isabel Pratt personally supervises and proofs all translation work ensuring the language, vocabulary and grammar is right and means what it should.

Mrs. Pratt holds the title of "licenciada" in Mexico which comes from her having a degree in business administration from a large Mexican university. In addition to years of experience in providing translations for business clients involved in production and importation from Mexico, Mrs. Pratt has unique experience in Texas public school administration.

Mrs. Pratt has been a member of a school board and completed the many hours of training required by TEA for board members. She has also served the administration, business manager and general all-around office official for a public charter school with about 150 students on campus. In those duties, Mrs. Pratt was required to complete many hours of training from TEA regarding the same school policies all administrators deal with daily.

Her unique experience in all facets of school management, from daily attendance and discipline to the budget and Foundation School Program reporting, combines with extensive experience in English to Spanish translations to provide unmatched competence.

The final competitive edge held by our firm is that we spend a good deal of time in Mexico each year keeping current with terminology and phraseology in both business and in education. This is an important factor in providing solid translations as translators who do not remain current in both languages often provide stale translations which lose important distinctions in meaning. An example in English would be how in the 1970's materials used the term 'ecology' where today they use 'environment'.

what do these great services cost?

We offer translation services to schools in three different levels of pricing. Fees range from under two thousand dollars to just under four thousand for initial services. Annual renewal update services range from about a thousand to around fifteen hundred dollars.

Download our current rate card here (pdf)

Service questions and other inquiries:

If you have trouble with this form, feel free to email us at robert@irpworks.org.