Thursday, September 30, 2004 Edition of The Beacon

Support the Key for Hispanic Network

By Julien Gorbach
Staff Writer

ACTON - Six-year-old Sofia Ricciardi has been reading an writing English and Spanish since before she entered kindergarten. Now she also has two years of Chinese under her belt, thanks to weekly extracurricular instruction at the Acton Cinese Language School.

Meanwhile, 7-year-old Isabella Cava is facing her first few weeks of school in a new country with a new language. A teacher who speaks Spanish helps her once a week.

Her classmates all said "Hola!" the first day. But Isabella still misses Peru. And though principal Chistopher Whitbeck assures Isabella's mother that her daughter will be just fine, Dorita Cava confesses she is a little worried.

As the diversity that Sofia and Isabella represent grows ove the years to come, so too will the challenges for Acton's public school system. Sofia's mother, Zoila Ricciardi, hopes the Latino Family Network can assist the schools in meeting these challenges.

The Network held one of its quarterly gatherings Sunday at the Parker Damon Building. Rep. James eldridge, school Superintendent Bill Ryan and Giovanni Negretti, executive director of the state wide latin political organization Oiste, all gave speeches at the luncheon. Concord resident Michael Truman performed magic tricks for the children.

Ricciardi said she believed the luncheon was successful because 18 families showed up.

Ricciardi first became familiar with local Latin families last year, whe she was going through a job transition and volunteeredto translate for Brazilian families in schools.

"I realized people knew each other, but in small groups," she said.

In May 2003, she put an ad in The Beacon announcing the formation of the network, and 26 families signed up the first day.

The network now boasts 80 families and 144 people on its distribution list. Sunday's event event included members from Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia, who now live in Acton and bordering towns, but also other areas in the MetroWest region.

Ricciardi's local organizing efforts really began with her daughter three and half years ago. She wanted Sofia immersed in Spanish before she became exposed to American culture, so she opened her home up to other local families with the same goal in mind. Collectively they hired a certified Spanish teacher for what became dubbed the "escuelita" - or little school. the children studied about 12 hours a week.

While Sophia has moved on, the escuelita continues under the leadership of fellow network organizer Maria Lederboer, and 17 children now participate in the program.

Ricciardi said her daughter is not a genius, but had the advantage of being immersed in the languages at an early age.

As for the school district, Ricciardi suggests assigning a staff member as a liaison with the Latin community - an idea that derives from her corporate experience as a liaison with Latin America for IBM.

she said customers appreciate someone they can go to whose face they recognize, and who knows their language, culture and issues. From a company's point of view, it's more efficient to have a single point of contact for the Latinos, rather than scattering them throughout the system.

Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the country, and creating a liaison position while the local population is still small and manageable would help the schools get ahead of the game, Ricciardi added.

"In 1980, I couldn't find anyone to speak Spanish to," she said. "Now if I go shopping downtown, I can spend the whole day without speaking English."

As the population grows, school officials should start to learn how to solve the issues.

"It's a diverse population that needs to be treated with a diverse approach, and with different lenses," she said.

Ryan said 23 percent of the district's 5,700 students belong to minorities, and the schools do have an English as a Second Language program at all levels.

For the last two years, one of our main goals has been to work on diversity, but to a large extent, to encourage more dialogue and to listen," he said.

Last year, educators held many discussions, particularly with the Asian community.

During his address, Ryan focused on some of the schools' fiscal challenges. While state aid has fallen dramatically over the past couple of years, student enrollment has increased.

The town passed an override for its operating budget two years ago, and has cut 45 positions since then. It's clear that the schools will need another override in fiscal year '06, he said.

Eldridge said state funding for education has been his top priority.

The luncheon served as a boost for the incumbent representative, who is now campaigning against Republican candidate TJ Dyer. Ricciardi praised Eldridge's attendance at almost every network meeting since the first one, and for always being there to help the community.

Eldridge pointed out two differences between the state's Democratic and Republican parties on education and healthcare for immigrants: Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed a tuition provision that would have allowed about 400 undocumented immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition at state colleges and universities. Romney also vetoed a healthcare measure that would have covered about 3,000 elderly and disabled immigrants who are in this country legally.

Before recessing this summer, the Legislature overturned 117 of Romney's 222 vetoes, but left these provisions alone. Newspaper accounts afterwards quoted some legislators and advocates as saying that the representatives would have found measures for immigrants a tough sell during an election season.

Eldridge also received high praise from Negretti, who explained that five-year-old Oiste is the first Latin political organization in the state. Oiste offers civic eduation to help Latinos become involved in the political process and train them how to run for office.

"Politics is to create change, it's not just about lobbying and legislating," Negretti said. And what you are doing here is creating change."