ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A number of Latino organizations held a press conference outside of the Orange County Public Schools School Board building on Tuesday.
The organizations included Organize Florida, Voices Unidas para la Educación, and Pa'lante por mas.
Organizers ended the news conference by heading inside the building and delivering a letter to the OCPS school board.
In that letter, they request that live closed captioning be provided during every meeting in the top five non-English languages in Orange County schools, which they list as Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Arabic, and Vietnamese.
Also included in that letter, is the request of an extension to the parent survey deadline.
Additionally, the group is calling for an information campaign, and is asking the school board to make sure all parents know about all of their options, as well as understand them.
They tell News 6, while the information regarding parents options is available online in Spanish, they said it is difficult to navigate the website. Adding that many parents have had a hard time finding the information without instructions in Spanish on how and where to find it.
Speakers said, they commend the school board's action on Friday, to send their reopening plan to the state along with a waiver calling for local discretion when it comes to decisions on reopening schools.
“Our ask of the governor is, give back the power to our local communities,” Samuel Vilchez Santiago with Voices Unidas para la Educación said.
Orange County Public Schools tells News 6, translations are provided for those who attend the meetings in person.
OCPS said headsets are available at the meetings for those who need translations in Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese.
But during the pandemic, many families have turned to viewing the meetings online.
OCPS said they are working to get a translation online for those watching via YouTube.