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Newark Latino families and labor organizers are asking the school district to require professional interpreters at every board meeting after they say Spanish-speaking parents’ public comments were incompletely interpreted at a recent meeting.
Rafael Chavez, a community organizer with the New Labor advocacy organization, said in the absence of a qualified interpreter at last month’s school board meeting, superintendent Roger León stepped in to interpret some parents’ public comments. Chavez told Chalkbeat the issue of interpretation has come up repeatedly at previous Newark board meetings, including at the September meeting where he testified in Spanish without an interpreter…