I think you should try a family night with diverse foods that the familys make and bring with them. Make them feel welcome and take the time to listen. We have had a family recent move to our area from Peru. I take the time to sit and listen to them and try to understand. They do know a little English but if we don't take the time to know and converse with them, they won't feel welcome and they can learn from you how better to say things in English and will feel more comfortable talking with others in you organization. They are very interesting people so try to gear your activities to their cultures and interests. That is where you are going to draw them in.

We live in a fairly urban area with a very diverse population in terms of income, race, ethnicity and religion. Our school, however, has one of the lowest income levels and minority percentage- about 70% free/reduced lunch and 75% minority. We have a large Hispanic and Haitian-Creole population. Events that work for us are a Multicultural Night, where families bring in dishes, costumes and traditions from their backgrounds and anything where children are celebrated, such as awards nights, concerts, etc. As a PFO (Parent-Faculty Organization), we reached out to a few Latino parents last year to help translate at meetings and events and a Haitain Creole mom as well. It's not great yet, but it's definitely getting better.

You know in every group there are informal leaders. Maybe you could ask the front office who one of the stronger Hispanic parents are, call them and enlist their help in planning of things. That could open the passage to others. Also try posting things in Spanish anf english on your website or even consider hoating a basic english class in the evenings....al good juju for you and the group.

ps--I suspect any offensive emails were already deleted in part or whole by Tim...he's pretty smart like that...d

I don't think anyone said anything wrong. That's why I was confused. Political correctness really gets in the way anyway. I'm just trying to get some help and I think I have gotten a lot of help.

We all wish that everyone spoke English (I agree with the above comment in that regard), but pressing the issue doesn't help the kids. If anything it just separates people even more. So, well said everyone on trying to help me out. I greatly appreciate it.

I am glad to know that I am not the only one dealing with diversity and reaching across cultural barriers. It makes life interesting. We did have various cultural events that reached out to all different groups, but some groups still would not participate, so we were left with 2 groups being represented. Last year we had a Cinco De Mayo event instead of a luau and we had a lot more people attend the event.

These are the kinds of ideas I am looking for.

Thanks,
Kathryn

No some of us mainly me not u.. Trying to offer non politicaly correct repsonses and helpful answers

I'm sorry. Did I go off topic with my question about cultural diversity and getting parents involved when they feel intimidated? Why would you delete??

I like what everyone here posted. We are definitely title 1 at 63% low income (free and reduced lunch) and will grow higher in % when the kids from the new housing development leave. I like the survey idea and the idea of joining forces with the community agencies. I found out from a prior PTA member that getting people to help at events is not a problem because we do like someone here suggested, we say specifically "we need someone from 3:30-4:30 to mark off cards for the walk-a-thon" (for example). Our problem is getting people to attend meetings and speak up. I was thinking of asking the teachers to get classroom ambassadors. Ask for 1 parent from each classroom. Otherwise our past PTA (soon to be PTO) has had meetings with 2 people that last 5 minutes.

One thing that really interests me is getting non-school families involved. People that live in the community, to at least attend events. Especially if we have an outdoor event such as a fair or something.

Maybe we also need to address the fact that we are so fortunate to be culturally diverse and request people from all nationalities to be represented?? Why make it the big elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about?

Thanks everyone for your help.

Kathryn