Forum a Success at Lexington Middle School

February 08, 2010

Adriana Carnes, an English Language Learning teacher at the Lexington Middle School, hosted a forum between parents of English Language Learner students and the Lexington Police Department at Lexington Middle School on Saturday, February 6th. The students who are in English Language Learner classes tend to be new immigrants to the United States. Most in Lexington are from Latin America or Africa. Many are unfamiliar with American laws.

“Instead of answering questions from individual parents or students about different laws,” said Carnes, “I decided to ask an expert to come to the school to answer their questions.”

Paul Schwarz was the expert that the Lexington Police Department called upon to answer parent’s questions about law enforcement procedures in Lexington and the United States. The forum was the idea of Carnes, an immigrant from Mexico herself. Some of the parents had even been arrested for behavior towards their children that would be accepted practice in their place of origin.

Schwarz spoke for about 15 minutes, and then answered parent’s questions for another hour. Many of the parents had questions about spanking their kids, or other types of corporal punishment. Schwarz emphasized to the parents not to strike their children in anger. Spanking was all right, he said, but don’t hit kids in the face. Make sure you are telling them why you are spanking them, said Schwartz.

Schwarz, who has some kids in the Lexington Public Schools, was glad to donate his time. “These kids are our future, he said. “We have to do our best as a community to educate them for success. “

Schwarz is currently running for Dawson County Sheriff.

As Schwarz spoke, Carnes then translated into Spanish and Barre Hassan, a paraprofessional for the Lexington Public Schools, translated into Somali, the language of many of the Africans. Sixty parents and students were in attendance.