In 2014, when Cynthia Reyes enrolled her daughter in what was then Greene Elementary School — now Cardinal Elementary — a school employee assumed she didn’t know English.
“I remember exactly the words. The administrator saw me and said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you knew English. You don’t look like you know English,’” Reyes said in an interview Monday . Another school employee then said to Reyes that her English was “very good” and asked if she could stay to help them translate for other parents in enrollment.
In the fall of 2020, according to state data, 81.3% of Cardinal students were Hispanic.
“I got so mad. First of all, I’m American, that’s how I learned English. I’m not from the East Coast, I’m from the West Coast. I’m not going to help you after your insult,” Reyes recalled.
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But when other parents in the enrollment line noticed Reyes could speak both Spanish and English, they begged her to stay and help.
Reyes said these and other instances were more than enough reason for her to help draft a Bill of Rights for students, parents and caregivers, which includes a declaration that “students and families who speak a language other than English have the right to access the same opportunities as English speakers.”
Virginia Organizing, a statewide grassroots organization, began crafting the Bill of Rights after holding listening sessions in which students and parents — a majority being Black and Latino families — from Richmond and the surrounding counties shared their personal stories and concerns.
The Richmond School Board briefly discussed the “Student, Parent, [and] Caregiver Bill of Rights,” during a work session Monday night. The board is slated to vote on the document at its June 6 meeting.
The organization wrote a draft in the summer of 2020, which a committee of students, educators and parents reviewed and edited. The Legal Aid Justice Center reviewed the final draft. In the months since, Virginia Organizing asked partner organizations for input, held door-knocking campaigns and community meetings and met with a handful of Richmond School Board members.
Next steps for the Richmond chapter of Virginia Organizing include encouraging Chesterfield and Henrico public school districts to adopt the document.
School Board Chair Shonda Harris-Muhammed of the 6th District told fellow board members Monday night that they can send questions directly to her regarding the document and she will share them with the RPS chief of staff and Virginia Organizing.
The document contains seven rights including:
- Students have the right to be treated equally and have the right to be safe in their public school.
- Students have freedom of religion, speech, and expression.
- Students identified with disabilities have the right to access the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers.
- Students experiencing homelessness have the right to: remain in their current or most recent school for the rest of the school year or enroll in the neighborhood school where they are staying
While the document is seen as a tool for parents to use to fight for their parental rights and the rights of students, proponents say all of the components are legally protected rights.
Fourth District School Board member Jonathan Young said he believes the freedom of religion component of the document “will soon be at variance with [Supreme] Court precedent” in a case from Washington state — Kennedy v. Bremerton School District — where a high school football coach prayed with students before and after games. The school district asked him to stop praying with students.
The case, which the Supreme Court heard in April, raised the issue of whether such prayers are protected free speech, or if school officials may prevent them in order to avoid violating the First Amendment’s clause barring governmental establishment of religion.
Anne Forrester, a Language Instruction Education Program teacher within RPS and a Virginia Organizing member, said she has witnessed families being treated unfairly — she said it’s a problem in all public school districts.
“I’ve seen the way that families have been treated and ways their rights have been violated. This isn’t exclusive to RPS, I think it’s public schools and public systems in general,” Forrester said in an interview. “I think a lot of times it’s not like mal-intent or like even intentional at all to violate people’s rights. It’s just a matter of people not knowing [their rights].”
Forrester, who teaches English Learner students, assisted with the proposed right of students and families who speak a language other than English by adding a sentence that “English Learner (EL) students are entitled to an equal opportunity to participate in all age-appropriate academic and extracurricular programs.”
While it doesn’t appear to be a practice anymore, RPS in the past has placed students who didn’t speak English into a lower grade level, Forrester said.
A teacher who realizes their new student is 8 years old, but in the first grade, can refer to the Bill of Rights and recognize, “this is not age-appropriate. This is not where they belong,” Forrester said.
Reyes recalled back in 2014 when Greene Elementary wanted to place her daughter into an English Learner class based on the assumption English wasn’t her first language.
After she signed a waiver because her daughter’s first language was in fact English, her daughter was not placed in the class and instead an individualized education program process began to help find the root cause of why Reyes’ daughter was struggling to read and write.
This past fall, Reyes went through the same roadblock with her son, who was switched into Westover Hills Elementary from Cardinal by the school district. According to Reyes, school staff thinks he should be in an English Learner class. Reyes has explained that her son may have the same “learning disability” as her daughter.
Reyes said the family also faced an immense amount of trauma during the pandemic, including the death of her husband — who was her children’s father and experiencing homelessness — which made it more difficult to focus on school.
“I’m not complaining about the teacher. I am complaining about the administration or about a principal,” Reyes said. “Where else can we go and ask for help if they aren’t listening to us?”
Several members of the community, parents and teachers — including Reyes and Forrester, who are part of Virginia Organizing — spoke on behalf of the Bill of Rights during Monday’s public comment period. All asked for the School Board to approve the document.