Limit on Spanish at Va. School Sparks Clash

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 12, 2001; Page B01

Whenever a child looked sick, whenever there was a question about scheduling, the Hispanic immigrants who brought their children to the Claremont Academy and Early Childhood Center's extended-care facility would talk with the Spanish-speaking aides who worked there.

Having a bilingual staff was a comfort, something they appreciated and respected about the Arlington County school system, which runs the facility.

But in recent weeks, tensions between aides who are bilingual and supervisors who cannot understand Spanish have risen to such a level that the center's management sent a series of terse memos to the staff, telling employees they can no longer speak Spanish to parents or to each other without a supervisor and interpreter present.

"It has been brought to my attention through a co-worker that you are again speaking Spanish to parents," said an Oct. 15 memo addressed to an employee and signed by Jennifer Dalley, a supervisor. "You have been told that this is not appropriate."

One woman said she was fired for continuing to speak Spanish after the memos. And the county's Hispanic community, one of the largest in the Washington area, has become angry and frustrated by what it says is an unfair and surprising reaction from a school system that usually tries to hire Spanish speakers, not fire them.

The conflict and others like it show how living and working in an increasingly multilingual country can cause institutions difficulty navigating the powerful issue of communication.

The Arlington County school system is one of the most diverse in the Washington region; about a third of its students are Latino and speak Spanish. In addition, more than a dozen other languages, including Urdu, French and Arabic, are spoken. About 60 percent of students at Claremont's extended-day program speak Spanish. The center operates before and after school for children ages 4 to 11.

Officials said they cannot comment on personnel issues, including the firing of Karla Sanchez, 21, the aide who said she was let go because she continued to speak Spanish. Several other employees said they are facing disciplinary action.

But school officials said they try to hire bilingual employees and send letters to students' homes in both Spanish and English.

"We highly value the bilingual skills of our employees," said Patti Macie, who runs the extended-day programs in the Arlington County schools. "But it's the supervisor's responsibility to be managing the situations related to the children, answering parents' questions, talking to parents, no matter what language they speak."

The issue is complicated. Complaints filed by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against companies that have English-only policies have nearly tripled in the past four years, according to the agency. In 1996, 32 complaints were filed nationwide; last year, there were 91.

Companies may have English-only policies as long as they can prove they are a business necessity -- say, in an air traffic control tower, where safety depends on pilots and controllers understanding one another.

The trouble, legal experts say, is that some companies take the policies too far and institute them simply because they want to know what their employees are talking about.

"As the area grows more multilingual, there have been a number of cases of what we call linguistic insecurities," said Jaime Zapata, spokesman for the Washington-based National Association for Bilingual Education. "Sometimes this manifests itself when an employer tries to prohibit an employee from using a language they cannot understand."

At Claremont, the issue emerged this summer. Some of the Spanish-speaking employees at the 90-student center sent a letter to their supervisor listing improvements they thought were needed. The grievances included accusations about staff members not getting along, some staff members getting special privileges and some yelling at or making fun of the children.

That letter was dated June 17. A month later, the first memo telling staff members not to speak Spanish without a supervisor or an interpreter in the room was sent to employees. Nothing specific connected the two events, but employees said they believe the actions reflected rising tensions between staff and management.

"Half the people who come here are Spanish," said Sanchez, who had worked for the school system since 1999. "I have never been told not to speak Spanish, and then all of a sudden I am in meetings being asked, 'What part of "Don't speak Spanish" don't you understand?' Instead of solving the problems, they told us to stop talking."

Macie said she could not talk about the specific complaints in the grievance letter but said in general that allegations like that are always looked into. She said the problem at Claremont is communication. She said the school system is trying to solve issues surrounding the case by holding meetings with employees. Recently, it sent a letter to parents explaining the new Spanish-English policy.

"Everyone needs to be able to know what the employees are saying to the parents," Macie said. "If there is a problem, they should come to me and their supervisor and work it out."

Several parents who use the center said they were upset with the new policy.

"Now they follow you around and make sure you are not speaking in Spanish with the aides," said a Spanish-speaking parent who spoke on condition that her name not be used because her child attends the center. "I just don't understand the policy."

In response, the school system sent a letter to parents saying there had been a "misunderstanding."

The letter, signed by Macie, says conversations between parents and supervisors should be in English, but "when necessary, we then ask bilingual staff to restate it in Spanish."

It is technically legal for employers to demand that workers speak English when they are talking about company business, said Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.

But it is bad policy and could end up going either way in court, Willis said. In 1999, for example, Carlos Solero and seven other Spanish-speakers -- along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- filed lawsuits against Watlow Batavia Inc., a metal-casting and assembly company in Batavia, Ill., for being told they could not speak or even sing or mumble in Spanish. The group won more than $190,000.

"We are a multicultural nation that accepts the use of languages other than English," Willis said. "This really ends up hurting the trust of those who need the services of Spanish."