The Claremont Academy and Early Childhood Center in Arlington Country has recently instituted a new policy that prohibits its employees from speaking Spanish to parents without a supervisor or interpreter present.
“Everyone needs to be able to know what the employees are saying to the parents” according to the center’s director Patti Macie Monday in a Washington Post article. “If there’s a problem, they should come to me and their supervisor and work it out.”
This reasoning is a poor justification for the new policy. Center employees who feel a need to discuss a child’s progress or performance with his or her Hispanic parents should not be prevented from doing so simply because no supervisor is present. More importantly, supervisors should not have the right to hear every discussion about a child’s progress so long as the child’s parents feel comfortable talking to Spanish-speaking aides.
The new policy forces Hispanic parents to speak English to the center’s employees. They are going to find it harder to effectively work out difficulties with supervisors if they can’t speak English. One of the main reasons the center exists is to provide a service to the significant population of Arlington County that speaks Spanish.
The new policy also hurts Spanish-speaking children who attend the center. These children will find it increasingly difficult to communicate with the Center aides, particularly if they don’t speak English. First and foremost, the center should focus on the interests of its children. It shouldn’t put into place a language barrier that hinders the employees’ ability to work with students and help them develop.
According to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, companies may implement English-only policies so long as they prove these policies are a business necessity. But there is nothing necessary about implementing an English-only policy that will most likely alienate Spanish-speaking parents who send their children to the center. Rather than being a business necessity, the policy will probably hurt business and undermine the school’s reputation among Arlington County’s Hispanic population.
The center should abandon its new English-only requirement and re-introduce the bilingual element that makes the center best able to serve Arlington County’s significant biligual population.
