Due to the rapid growth of immigrant and refugee families in Saint Paul Public Schools, the ELL department opened the Translation Services office. Acting in compliance with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) guidelines, the Translation Services office ensures that families for whom English is a second language are given every opportunity to participate actively in their children’s education.
The Translation Services office provides translators and interpreters at a minimal cost to schools within the Saint Paul Public Schools district (SPPS). The office also provides translation and interpretation to schools, programs and communities throughout Minnesota. Other districts and communities are encouraged to use SPPS Translation Services due to the fact that we have a cadre of interpreters and translators who are familiar with educational technology and whose skills are tailored to educational settings.

Services:

• Interpreters for school events, community meetings, parent-teacher conferences, graduation ceremonies, etc.
• Translations for documents such as parent and community surveys, emergency letters for schools, brochures and fliers, testing information and score dissemination, and welcome letters for schools at the beginning of the year.
• SPPS is one of few districts in the U.S. that provides its school choice catalog in four different languages (English, Hmong, Somali, and Spanish). Information from the catalog is available online in all four languages.
• When scheduling an interpreter for an event, please keep the following in mind:
• Persons that are not entered into the SPPS payroll system cannot be contracted as interpreters.
• Interpreters are paid for a minimum of two hours
• Translation Services and ELL do not schedule interpreters.  However, we do maintain a list of qualified interpreters who have been entered into the payroll system.  Please contact the Translations Coordinator at 651-767-8334 for a copy of the list.

Products:

Translation Services creates, promotes and distributes various materials within SPPS, in the community, and in other districts as well. These products can been reviewed in the ELL On-line Store.

The Translation Services website can be viewed using the link on the top right side of the page - or from any place on the ELL website using the Quicklinks pull-down menu located on the upper light hand side directly below the top banner. 

The ELL On-line Store (description of on-line store) can be accessed using the links in the same locations.