How To: Make Sure Your District Budgets for Translation

You’re on the frontlines of education. You work directly with students and parents daily.

You know what resources you need. It’s just a matter of working with your school and district to ensure those needs are met.

If you work with a lot of English-language learners, chances are you’ve run into the need for interpretation or translation. Had your school planned for these costs?

If you need more funding for translation, you need to ensure that it’s part of the school district’s budgeting process. Starting these conversations early can help you get a sense of the resources available to your district and ensure you have the resources you need next year.

Who to talk to about budgeting for translation

You need to know who’s involved in the budgeting process. We’ll review basics about who manages the budgeting process, but remember that some of these things can vary by state and school district.

• • Superintendent: oversees school district budget and budgeting process
• • Assistant superintendent / chief business official / budget administrator: creates and presents budget preparation guidelines for the next school year
• • School Board: reviews and approves budget process, guidelines, and calendar
• • School administrators: assists in budget development as assigned by the superintendent
• • Principal: oversees budget at the school-level
• • School employees: offer feedback and make budget requests

When to start conversations about budgeting for translation

Planning and budgeting for the next school year is a year-long process that starts in the fall. We’ll review how this process works and ways you can get translation into the conversation earlier, rather than later.

Fall – Set Goals and Priorities

The superintendent and other school administrators start working on budget guidelines, due dates, and the development process for the district in the fall.

Fall seems early to start thinking about the next school year. However, if you ran into translation funding shortfalls last year, now’s a good time to flag it as a priority for your school.

Working with your principal, make sure that translation funding is on the school district’s priority list.

Winter – Create School District Budget

School districts start creating the budget during the winter. It gets busy during this season, especially since it’s holiday season. However, keep tabs on conversations around the budget. Talk to your principal to see if they have any updates, and offer another reminder of translation’s role in the success of your students.

Spring – Schools Create Their Budgets

Once the district sets its budget, it allocates funds to each school. Your principal will start making decisions for your school based on this information. Here’s where you can learn more about how your school specifically will cover translation costs.

Remember that budgets have to be submitted and approved before going into effect, so there is still an opportunity to make changes if needed.

Summer – Reporting and Making Adjustments

During the summer, schools finish reporting for the school year and end the fiscal year. They also submit their finalized budgets and funding requests. Based on what comes back after approval, there may be additional changes. If you’re lucky, you may be approved for more that you thought or exactly what you requested. If not, you’ll need to consider areas for making cuts.

How to make the case for translation

As you prepare to talk to the school board and your principal about budgeting for translation, keep a few things in mind:

1. 1) Budgets are detailed and have many parts. They allocate funding for buses, staff salary and benefits, building upkeep, any debt the school district has, etc. There are often competing priorities, and it can be easy for certain programs to be forgotten.
2. 2) Data is your friend. Your school district and principal need a tangible way to justify how they allocate funds. Information on student demographics and parent English proficiency will help your district prioritize translation funding appropriately.
3. 3) Stories are memorable. While data makes a strong case, combine it with a story or two to make it tangible. Maybe a family had a really positive experience, or a student made really good progress academically because there was good communication facilitated by translation.

Here’s an example of what you can say:

“I was looking at the student body, and X percent of our students are English language learners or have parents with limited English proficiency. Building strong parent-teacher relationships is tricky with a language barrier. I want to make sure that we’re setting aside enough resources for interpretation and translation next year so we’re offering the same opportunities to parents for involvement at school and that our students get support from home.”

Depending on the response, it may be worth adding a gentle reminder that translation is a requirement of schools. However, keep in mind that the Office of Civil Rights considers budgetary limitations and overall need for translation when enforcing its requirements.

In other words, maybe your school district can only cover translations for specific notices, like IEP or 504 plans, because it is a small district with a limited budget and a small population of English-language learners. Expectations on budgeting for translation in districts with more funds or higher populations of English-language learners would be higher.

Remember that while most of the funding for translation services comes from state and local allocations, there are a few federal programs that supplement these costs in certain areas. The specifics can vary by school and depend on the program, so asking more questions about how your school can access these funds will also help move the conversation along.

Expressing your school’s need for translation and working with your principal and school district to ensure planning for these costs will make it easier to establish positive relationships with parents and support your students next year.

Do you need help with translation at your school? Get a quick quote or email [email protected] to ask for service and pricing details.