ANSWER:

There are currently 31 bilingual employees who work in MCPS high school front offices. The majority of these bilingual employees speak Spanish and other languages include German, Farsi, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Of the high schools that have indicated that they do not have bilingual front office staff, there are other bilingual staff and teachers available in the school to assist parents and community members.

At each stage of the staffing process, the Department of Recruitment and Staffing works with schools that are seeking to fill positions with bilingual staff.  Staffing specialists work with MCPS schools when advertising vacancies to determine if the schools prefer bilingual candidates.  Also, the employment application includes questions to identify bilingual candidates.  The pre-screening interview allows staffing specialists to identify candidates’ fluency in languages other than English.  In addition, staffing specialists on the Supporting Services Team monitor the pool of applicants that are on the MCPS careers website, so that qualified bilingual support service candidates are interviewed.