Superintendent of Schools Gregory Mott, Executive Director of Operational Effectiveness and Multilingual Education Dr. Jennifer Daddino, and Board of Education President Bob Creedon on Friday took part in a meet-and-greet and ideas exchange session with the Consul General of Mexico Marcos August Bucio and Consul of Guatemala Víctor Ramírez Scaglia, as well as members of their staffs.
The gathering in the City of Poughkeepsie included representatives of Dutchess County government, state Sen. Rob Rolison’s office, local Hispanic church leaders and others.
It was an opportunity for the international leaders to share with local leaders their concerns, what assistance and services they can offer to local residents and how local organizations can be of assistance.
Among the topics covered were resources for housing, food, safety, and passport and identification assistance.
“The consuls today provided us with additional information for their collective rights and overall safety and well-being,” Mott said. “We are going to continue to have outreach to various organizations and share that information within the Poughkeepsie City School District for our families.”
The event was organized by Casa Comunitaria de Recursos, a Poughkeepsie-based organization founded by Gabriela Vega-Matthews, committed to addressing the needs of the Hispanic, Latino and immigrant communities of Dutchess County by creating connections for local resources.
The Poughkeepsie City School District has been working with Vega-Matthews to strengthen its bonds with those communities, which encompass roughly half of the district’s population. Prior to Friday’s gathering, Mott visited a Spanish-language Christian church to address its congregation and invite families to utilize the district as an ally. “My intention is to be a face for the Poughkeepsie City School District for our Hispanic families, where they know they are a partner in this work and they have a partner in their overall safety and well-being,” Mott said.
The district has, in recent years, taken steps to overcome any language barriers that may exist with its families and students. In addition to its growing dual-language program, now in its fourth year, and establishing multilingual Community Schools liaisons in most school buildings, the district provides all its written communications in both English and Spanish. All communications directly from the superintendent are sent in both English and Spanish, each of the district’s webpages can easily be translated by clicking a button at the top right of the page header, and families can set preferences in the ParentSquare communication system to receive any message in their language of choice.