Unintelligible school robocalls leave some Jasper Co. Hispanic parents in the dark
In a year of bus driver shortages and transportation headaches, communication has been vital for Jasper County parents. For Spanish-speaking parents, however, it’s been sometimes problematic.
Parents regularly receive robotic calls, or robocalls, from the district relaying information about transportation issues, testing, school reminders and safety concerns, said Jesenia Perez, a bilingual parent in the Jasper County School District. First, the robot reads the message in English, then in Spanish. But the Spanish version has been impossible to understand.
“It’s like a robot trying to read in Spanish,” Perez said, “It doesn’t actually speak Spanish ... and it sounds terrible. You can only make out a few words, but you can’t make out what it’s actually saying if you’re a Spanish speaker.”
Jasper County is comprised of 30,324 residents, according to the latest census data, and 13.9% are Hispanic. Data regarding the race or ethnicity of the district’s 2,700 students was not immediately available.
Perez brought up her concern several weeks ago at a school board meeting and was told district officials would “look into it.” Since then, the calls have continued to go out with important information that can’t be deciphered.
“They haven’t addressed it yet,” Perez said. “These calls are still not ... you can’t understand them.”
The district publishes letters written in both English and Spanish on its website and Facebook page updating parents on the status of school construction, renovation projects and the shortage of bus drivers, but not for more immediate issues, such as daily updates on which buses are and aren’t running.
“This communication in Spanish has not gotten any better, nor has the transportation issue,” Perez said. “It’s a mess.”
Of the nine school board members contacted Thursday, only — Daisy Mitchell — responded and declined a request for comment, saying that communication with the media must go through board chair Carolyn Bolden.
Bolden could not immediately be reached for comment.
Superintendent Rechel Anderson did not respond to messages Thursday from the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, and Travis Washington, a spokesperson for the school district, declined to comment.
‘They’re hurting our children’
The issues with bus driver shortages have been going on since the beginning of the school year after drivers left the district in droves following their request for a raise.
In response, drivers received a letter in June 2021 notifying them that their positions would be “eliminated” to make room for bus driver paraprofessional positions. Drivers were later told that they could take up other jobs within the school district, such as working in the schools’ cafeterias or as a custodian for the district.
In a statement sent out by the district in April, officials said the “best way to accomplish this (pay) increase would be to modify duties.”
Since the start of the school year, parents have had to call off work, go from full-time to part-time, and, in some cases, have lost jobs because of the transportation inconsistency, according to previous reporting by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. Some frustrated parents took to meeting together to discuss solutions, forming a group they call the Jasper County United Association (JCUA).
In a meeting Thursday night at the Agape Family Life Center on South Okatie Highway in Hardeeville, parents continued to express their frustration.
“They (the district) don’t realize they’re hurting our children,” JCUA member Surenda Burrison said. “They’re hurting them now and they’re hurting them later.”
Last year, the district was operating 14 of its 39 buses, superintendent Anderson said at a community meeting. In February 2021, she said, they had seven. By February 2022, the district had at least 10 drivers, but parents were still taking on the brunt of getting their students to and from school, they said.
The district published a poster Wednesday in both English and Spanish, inviting bus drivers to apply. The poster advertised sign-on bonuses of up to $1,000 for new drivers and $2,000 for returning drivers. Both new hires and returning drivers could receive a monthly stipend of up to $250 and an attendance stipend up up to $2,000.
The district announced Thursday that one bus would not be running that day and two more would not be running Friday, according to one community member at the JCUA meeting.
Board member Priscilla Green was in attendance and spoke at the meeting. Green said she understood the concern from parents, but stressed that she is “not the board spokesperson.”
“We have a lot of great things going on in our school systems, but there are some things that aren’t perfect,” she said.
“I’m not going to stand here and say that there are not some mistakes that have been made. ... You need to reach out to your board representatives and let them know how you feel; you need to talk to the people at the table.”
