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About the district

Dr. Annette Griffin

Superintendent of Schools

Our public schools do a remarkable job of educating children, but the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD educational team does not work alone. Thankfully, we have many supportive organizations, businesses and individuals who work ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with us to help our students and families. One such supporting organization is the Parent Teacher Association (PTA).

The local school PTA units along with our Council of PTAs compose the largest child advocacy organization that the district has. The PTAs are wonderful to our schools, students and families, and these involved parents are always looking for ways to help families support their children’s education.

Over the last few years, the PTAs have been working to provide assistance to families who enroll in C-FB ISD from other countries. Currently, the school district includes students and families from over 100 countries. From the home language surveys completed by C-FB ISD families, we know that 63 different languages are spoken in C-FB ISD homes. Based on this information, the C-FB ISD PTA Council has joined forces with the district’s Language Services Department to establish “Cultural Ambassadors” for our schools. The “Cultural Ambassador” program will operate much like the Welcome Wagon that greeted residents new to the community and provided information about the community and the activities to the newcomers.

Our Cultural Ambassadors will be available to welcome immigrant families new to C-FB ISD and share information that they need to know about their campus. What makes the program unique is our ambassadors will be speaking with new families in their own language. These ambassadors will also connect new families to adult education resources, the city library, PTA and other community organizations.

Each year, our Language Services Department and schools identify the three languages that are spoken the most by their families attending the individual schools. This school year, the five languages other than English that are spoken most frequently district-wide are Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Urdu, and Malayalam.

The Cultural Ambassadors will have three major responsibilities. First, the ambassador will call the new family and share information about the new school and the United States public educational system. This information is being developed by the individual campus but will include basic information that any parent new to the school needs to know, including school dress requirements, school breakfast and lunch menus, school hours, volunteer opportunities. The parent ambassador will also arrange a short welcome meeting between the parent(s) and the child’s teacher(s). The ambassador will serve as the liaison/interpreter. We hope that this step will help personalize the new family’s relationship with individual teachers and the school. The third step in the process will be a personal invitation to the campus PTA meeting where our new families can meet other parents. And, again the ambassador will serve as the greeter/interpreter if necessary.

Once these steps have been completed, we hope that our new families will know how important it is for them to stay connected with their child’s school and with the PTA. However, if parents need additional support, they can contact the child’s school, and the campus will get the parents in touch with the Cultural Ambassador who is fluent in their ‘home’ language.

If you are interested in learning more about the Cultural Ambassador program, please contact your school’s principal and/or your school’s PTA president. In C-FB ISD, we know that involvement is key to the success of our students and schools. We want all parents to have the necessary tools to be active participants in their children’s learning and schools. That is why I am so pleased that the PTAs and our Language Services Department are joining forces to develop the “Cultural Ambassadors” to provide another type of support for families.

Thank you for your continued support of C-FB ISD and public education.

Council of PTAs Website

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