On a recent Friday in April, a group of students from Holyoke High School’s North and Dean campuses visited the UMass Amherst campus to participate in a variety of workshops and connect with UMass graduate students.
Such field trips have been common in recent years, with students regularly reporting back that such college visits are life changing for them.
This year’s field trip offered something new: One-on-one interpreters to help multilingual students who speak Haitian Creole, Spanish, Arabic, Dari, and French more fully understand their on-campus experiences.
A year ago, such language access services could not be provided. Now they can, thanks to Holyoke’s new One-on-One Student Interpreter Classroom Service that provides newcomer students 30 days of support in the classroom from an assigned interpreter. HPS launched this initiative at the start of the school year in response to an increasing number of families moving into the community who are new to the English language.
HPS Multilingual Education Director Jennifer Albury and Language Access Manager Linnette Clayton worked in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to develop this language-access support model to provide one-on-one interpreters for newcomer students who need temporary assistance. The district collaborates with professional freelance interpreters to provide this service for languages of lesser diffusion (languages spoken by a relatively small number of people in the area) since HPS does not have trained staff to support this need in house.
“This approach reduces the immediate language barrier that incoming students who don’t speak English experience at the outset,” Mrs. Clayton explained, “but it’s only one part of our approach. Our newcomer students also benefit from other language strategies and supports designed and implemented by our Multilingual Department.”
Since the model was launched at the start of the 2024-25 school year, approximately 30 students have been provided an interpreter shortly after their arrival. For some, the initial 30 days is all they need to begin their successful transition into learning at Holyoke Public Schools. For others, however, additional supports are needed—which their principals, teachers, and counselors work together to identify and secure.
“It’s a huge step forward in our efforts to be inclusive and to ensure that every student can develop the skills and access the opportunities they need to graduate high school prepared for life, careers, and college,” Mrs. Clayton said. “We celebrate the language diversity in our community, and we continue to make strides to provide access at all levels.”