Information gets out for families

Help for students, parents displaced from Puerto Rico

Word about helpful resources is getting out slowly to families who have moved to Lorain from Puerto Rico.

Island residents continue to deal with the effects of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017.

The weather damage on the island spurred some people to leave Puerto Rico for Lorain city and county.

On March 9, Washington Elementary School, 1025 W. 23rd St., hosted its monthly Coffee Chat morning meeting.

The school, with Lorain’s Stevan Dohanos Elementary, 1625 E. 32nd St., specializes in English language learners, so they have enrolled new Spanish-speaking students who arrived in late 2017 and so far this year.

Washington Elementary Principal Marie I. Contreras-Deshuk served as translator, although more than a few people attending were fluent in English and Spanish.

A group of four parishioners from South Lorain’s Sacred Heart Chapel attended to invite the group to an upcoming dinner and information night.

Sacred Heart Chapel, 4301 Pearl Ave. in South Lorain, will host the program at 4 p.m. April 8 at the church.

It is open to any families from Puerto Rico that have moved to

Lorain County and want to find out information about community and health services.

Meanwhile, Green Circle Growers, 51051 U.S. Route 20 in Oberlin, is recruiting workers who speak English, Spanish or both for full time jobs at the plant nursery.

Making progress

In the February meeting, Jessica Lopez described how she and her husband were searching for full time jobs.

On March 9, Lopez said her husband has found work and the family bought a car.

They are living with her brother, but want to save enough to rent their own apartment, preferably near Washington Elementary.

Lopez’ son is in kindergarten at the school.

“He’s having a hard time,” she said, with Contreras-Deshuk translating from Spanish. “He’s getting very frustrated because he wants to understand quickly. He wants to be where all the other kids are.”

The youngster may not be the only student feeling frustration due to language.

Contreras-Deshuk and Assistant Principal Celina Bigio explained about the school district and state testing requirements for students.

The students in grades three to five all take standardized tests required by the state of Ohio.

Lorain Schools also require proficiency tests for the elementary students in all grades, Contreras-Deshuk said.

However, the tests all are in English with no Spanishlanguage

options available, she said.

Welcome to Lorain

Sacred Heart Chapel parishioners Carmen Melendez, Ana Amador, Lydia Hernandez and Sonia Quinones Charles invited the parents to the April 8 dinner.

“The main reason to do this is because we want to unite all these people that have come from Puerto Rico,” Melendez said. “Because at this point, we know they’re here, but they’re scattered; we don’t really know how to contact them.

“So, our hope is that they come and that we could be of service to them, giving them information that they need to know about the city as well as that they need to know they have a Hispanic community that wants to welcome them and be there for them.”

Melendez, Amador, Hernandez and Quinones Charles said they were young girls when their families came to Lorain from Puerto Rico.

They said their families planned to make the move, but upon arriving in Lorain, at times, their parents felt lost due to the language barrier.

As children, they learned to speak and understand English, sometimes with extra tutoring in school, but without specialized learning programs in the regular classes.

Quinones Charles recalled being held back in first-grade because she did not yet know English.

Contreras-Deshuk said when she was in the thirdgrade, she and her mother had the same homework because her mother was studying English as an adult.

The situation must be

even more difficult for the families whose lives were upended by the hurricanes, they said.

Lorain is not the only school district with an influx of students from Puerto Rico.

There may be students who have enrolled in schools of Elyria, Clearview, Avon, Amherst and other districts, the women said.

“We know what they are going through from listening to our parents,” Melendez said. “I think that we’re being called right now. It’s a calling to help these people, our own people.”

Jobs available

Green Circle Growers is hiring workers, said Megan Pettibone, human resources recruiter for the company.

Pettibone attended the March 9 session at Washington Elementary and left job applications in hopes of finding new staff.

She estimated more than 30 percent of the workforce there speaks Spanish.

The company has translated its job applications and training materials and has positions ranging from drivers to general labor to merchandisers to boiler technician to industrial engineers.

Lack of public transit hurts the company when its workers live outside Oberlin, but employees carpool from as far as Cleveland to arrive each day, Pettibone said.

Although there is snow on the ground, Green Circle Growers has 108 acres under glass and the company is heading into peak season for planting and growing, she said.