PLACENTIA : Library Seeks County Money for Program

The Placentia Library District will find out Tuesday if the County Board of Supervisors is going to help fund an after-school, homework-assistance program aimed at Latino students.

The district is requesting $41,000 to begin the program, which will offer tutors for students and their parents as well.

It will also focus on teaching limited-English-speaking parents how to help their children with school assignments, while at the same time ensuring that students are receiving assistance while the parents are being trained, said Gwen Johnson, coordinator of the district’s family literacy programs.

“These parents want to help their children, but often cannot because the homework is in English and they only speak Spanish,” Johnson said.

Similar programs exist elsewhere in the area, she added, but most of the families that the programs seek to help have transportation problems, relying mostly on public buses.

The city does provide a free trolley system, but it is a 22-mile loop.

This means that parents who want to attend programs at the library, for instance, might have to stay on the trolley for more than 45 minutes, Johnson said.

The money requested from the county will enable the district to establish a satellite office at the Whiten Community Center on Melrose Street, which is in a predominantly Latino area.

The idea for a homework-assistance program came from parents.

“We found from our literacy programs that parents will utilize our services if they’re accessible,” Johnson said.

The funds would provide for a bilingual coordinator, desks, bookshelves and any other equipment needed, Johnson said.

The library district will supply most of the educational materials for the program.

The program is for students in second to 12th grades and will operate from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

For parents, there will be an opportunity to learn English or work with the tutor helping their child.

Spanish-speaking parents may also be recruited as tutors for children who don’t speak English, Johnson said.

Volunteers will be recruited and trained in August so that the program will be in place for the coming school year, said district director Elizabeth Minter.

“We want to do more than just make the parents literate,” Johnson said. “We want them to learn how to become active in teaching their child and become a stronger role model for education.”