We have similiar issues at our school. We do our best to ensure that all materials we send home are bilingual whenever possible. We are fortuate to have a bilingual volunteer coordinator who helps us get the monolingual parents to participate in our events. We've also made sure to have a translator at all of our general meetings to ensure that any monolingual parents are accomodated.
We have had people complain that the translations are not accurate, that the translator isn't using correct grammar...all sorts of things.
Some people will complain no matter what you do yet they don't want to step up and be part of the solution.
So those people, we just smile and nod and thank them for their feedback. It's all you can do sometimes.
Are you hearing these comments from those that are spanish speaking or others? Its difficult for some PTO's to have all communications translated due to the lack of bi-lingual parents that are involved in the PTO. The school also has limited resources.
Why don't you try to issue a memo written in english AND spanish (two-sided) that expresses the PTO's need for bi-lingual parents to help to bridge the gap in communication with parents. You need parents that are willing to translate all communications being released from the PTO so that everyone will be kept informed. Make sure you mention that this first memo was possible due to the assistance of the district, but that this resource was not on-going.
If those parents wish to be involved with the PTO, take part in its activities and have open communication, then they need to step up to the plate and get involved.
If possible try to find someone from that population that is bilingual that would be willing to participate on your board. Maybe make a special position on the board for them. If you need a contact, perhaps your principal or office manager could suggest someone.
By bringing in one person, you can then make progress to involving others.
One of our biggest problems is involving the spanish speaking parents that can't speak english. We want them to be apart of all things that we do but for some reason we have been stopped. I think something happened last your with the old group of PTO members but I have just gotten elected VP and already seem to have problems with poeple saying that we are not working woth them or we are excluding them. We have jus tgotten elected and the group we have now seems to want to make good things happen at this school.
We have problems with how to conduct meeting when the parents can't underdstand us.
