School District Embraces Diversity with Language Translation Tools

Buena Park Schools Modernize Communication, Improve Learning with Xerox^® Workflow Central

About the client

Located in Orange County, Calif., the Buena Park School District serves a diverse ethnic and socio-economic student population of approximately 4,600 students in five elementary schools, two middle school campuses, and one K-8 online academy.

Case Study Overview

This Buena Park School District faced a substantial challenge in meeting the varied needs of its diverse student population across the seven schools and one online academy it serves. Approximately 94 percent of its student body are students of color, speaking a number of languages including Spanish, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Arabic.

The district was looking for a better way to provide an educational environment that integrated its students’ many languages and resulting learning needs. It also wanted to improve the way it communicated with parents, many of whom do not speak or read English.

It found a solution in Xerox^® Workflow Central, a reliable and flexible workflow platform that enables the cohesive environment the district was seeking. Workflow Central provides an ever-growing library of cloud-based, single and multi-step combination workflows to help everyone do their job smoothly and securely.

Administrators, teachers, and students now benefit from tools that include the ability to instantly translate communications and education materials into multiple languages, they can choose to convert them to audio files, or even do it in a single step. The audio file has the added benefit of letting students with reading challenges listen and learn in their own language. And administrators have gained efficiencies with workflows that summarize files and meeting notes and automatically redact personal information to simplify public record preparation.

The Challenge

Language barriers to education and communication

The Buena Park School District was looking for a way to create a more inclusive educational environment for its diverse student population that would overcome language barriers for students, teachers, and parents.

With approximately 94 percent of its student body being students of color, the 4,600 students at the district’s five elementary schools, two middles school and one online academy speak a number of languages including Spanish, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Arabic.

Not only did the diverse language needs pose educational challenges, it also made it difficult for school officials to communicate with parents, many of whom do not speak or read English.

The district needed a way to help students learn in their own language, simplify teachers’ ability to accommodate diversity in the classroom, and help administrative effectively convey important information to parents.

“We are building an environment for students to be successful, regardless of their economic situation,” says BPSD’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Magboo. The question was how to integrate its educational, administrative, and communication needs within a single platform to help achieve that environment.

The Solution

A flexible workflow platform

The district worked with QDoxs, a local Xerox business partner, to evaluate its requirements. QDoxs recommended Xerox^® Workflow Central as a reliable and flexible platform that offers the real-time solutions Buena Park needed.

“We knew that the ability for students to have various platforms to learn is being needed more and more. But we also wanted to be able to improve the tools the teachers use without creating more work,” observed Lindsey Marks, VP of Sales for QDoxs.

The district deployed Workflow Central to meet its high standards with a better way to work and communicate. The platform provides a library of workflows that save teachers and administrative staff time and optimizes communication with parents and the community:

• Translate ensures instant and accurate conversion of parent communication.

• Combination workflows such as Translate plus Audio conversion allows students with reading deficiencies to listen and learn.

• Redact workflow automatically obscures personal information using set words or phrases, saving hours of manual processing time on public records archiving.

• Summarize workflow creates smaller, abridged files that are easier to digest, helping staff assemble educational packages required for grants, condense long meeting notes, and other needs fulfillment.

The Results

Improved learning and communications

Xerox^® Workflow Central has made investing in infrastructure and new technology easy for everyone, modernizing the district’s classrooms and offices, and the way staff, teachers, students, and the community connect with one another.

With the enhanced tools of Workflow Central, district administrators, teachers, and parents are literally on the same page when it comes to communications.

BPSD’s Secretary Letty Zaragoza notes that, “Communication between parents and the district is very important because we want to have our kids safe at all times, and we want to send the correct information to the parents―in their correct language.”

Students are now able to read and listen to educational material in their own language, a particularly helpful feature for those with reading challenges. Teachers save time in preparing education materials and meeting students’ diverse needs. And Workflow Central’s summarize and redact tools let office staff be more efficient.

“I believe the district has not only done a good job communicating, it has done a really good job pivoting to meet the demands of whatever issue should come up. And Workflow Central is a very big part of it,” COO Magboo says. “I’m not kidding when I say everyone uses it here.”

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