Council hears of lack of school bilingual aides

LAST OCTOBER, Eva Serrano was called and asked to head straight to her fourth-grade son's school. She was frantic, but when she arrived, no one could communicate with her because she speaks little English.

It wasn't until the next day when the George W. Nebinger School, in Bella Vista, had a Spanish-speaking bilingual counseling assistant who could talk with her.

Serrano, 40, learned from the assistant that her son had drawn a picture of himself on the verge of jumping through a window.

"He was depressed. He wanted to kill himself," she told the Daily News yesterday after she testified at a City Council education-committee hearing on Philadelphia School District budget issues.

Her son has faced racism at the school and has been attacked, she said. Now undergoing therapy, he is doing better, she said.

Over the past year, facing a $629 million budget shortfall, the district has cut about half the number of its bilingual counseling assistants - the interpreters who help students and their parents.

Juntos, a South Philadelphia Latino advocacy group, said that it found out from the district that the jobs of 18 ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) teachers also were eliminated.

Serrano told Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who heads the education committee, that at Nebinger, ESOL classes have been suspended and the number of days interpreters work has been cut.

Angelica Victoriano, who has two kids at the Andrew Jackson School, in South Philly, and Miguel Andrade, a youth leader with Juntos, also testified that the district needs to halt any more cuts to bilingual staff.

Members of Asian Americans United also attended the hearing with about 20 immigrant parents. Because the hearings were running late, they didn't testify but went to speak directly with Councilwoman Maria Quiñones- Sánchez, an education-committee member, in her office.

Helen Gym, an AAU board member, said afterward that one father from China, who has a special-needs daughter who attends the Solis-Cohen school, in Castor Gardens, told the councilwoman that when a bilingual counseling assistant is not at the school to help his daughter, "she's not able to articulate her needs."