Logan High Adds LatinX Outreach Programs

Parent-liaisons with USU STARS! GEAR UP at Logan High School are reaching out to the LatinX community and Spanish-speaking parents with two new community programs. The goal is to help parents better communicate with the school and become aware of services available to the community.

Reporter Irma Mora said in a January 4 article in The Herald Journal that one of the programs, “’Puertas Abiertas’ or ‘Open Doors,’ is a series of monthly informative workshops in which community organizations inform attendees about services they offer and how these services can be obtained.” Maria Hunsaker, LHS parent-liaison with USU STARS! said that the workshops “will consist of a dinner, a presentation by the organization and a question-and-answer session. ‘It’s just one hour. It’s really short. We are trying to keep it to one hour,’ Hunsaker said. ‘We’re hoping as we get going, you know, we will get more and more people.’”

Parent Jenny Soto, also quoted in the article, has two children in the USU STARS! program, one in 9th at Mount Logan Middle School and an 11th grader at LHS. She said that “the workshops would help in educating the community in important topics and said they would attend the future workshops as well as invite others to come. ‘I think it would be great if all the parents from Logan High School could come and really learn because it’s true that the school helps our children, but I think the foundation is with the parents,’ Soto said. ‘Sometimes it upsets me when not many people come, but I think little by little as we let them know, they will come.’

The second program led by the LHS parent-liaisons is “an intensive two-week English speaking class that will help English learners to practice the language. ‘One of the biggest things we find in working with a lot of the parents is that they understand English. They kind of speak it, but they’re scared to use it,’ Hunsaker said. ‘They don’t have a lot of opportunity to practice. Sometimes in the work they do but for the majority of the time just basic conversation is not their strongest point, and so, what we’re doing is just two weeks of intense practicing.’

Parents will be evaluated and placed in beginning, intermediate or advanced classes. Hunsaker said the goal of the classes is to help the students become more comfortable using conversational English. ‘It’s kind of based off of the speed dating,’ Hunsaker said. ‘You’re with somebody for a few minutes and then you move on, and so we want them to get that practice over and over with different people so that they start to get more comfortable with their skills and more comfortable with their ability to speak.’” The newspaper invited community members to participate as volunteers.

Press: The Herald Journal