Minority Students Become the Majority

The demographic shifts also have affected the region's large population of African Americans, many of whom have long-standing ties to the area. Charles's schools became majority black last year, a process driven by people moving from the District and Prince George's. Prince George's, known as the wealthiest majority-black county in the United States, is rapidly changing, too.

When Rhonda Gray Pitts became the principal of Bladensburg Elementary in Prince George's in 2001, 71.6 percent of her students were black. This year, the majority of her roughly 600 students are Hispanic.

Diversity has its complications, Pitts said. More than half of Bladensburg Elementary's Hispanic students are in English-learner programs, and the school has two teachers who speak fluent Spanish. Pitts has hired a bilingual secretary to help handle requests from parents, has a Hispanic parent liaison, hires interpreters to help her with conferences and sometimes recruits high school students in need of community service hours to translate. Everything that goes home -- fliers, forms and newsletters -- is in English and Spanish, and her parent liaison has offered a popular set of mini-lessons in English for parents.

"I think the problem arises for me in the translation of things," Pitts said. "My PowerPoints have to be in English and Spanish. What would be helpful is if there was just someone on staff that could translate all things that need to go home, because it's very time-consuming. But they have a right to the same information that everyone has."

Pitts pointed out that differences in dialect among students from Latin American countries can make mutual understanding even harder.

But she said her efforts have borne fruit. The once-troubled school has met federal standards for academic progress in the past two years, she said, and parents' attitudes have changed.

"When I first arrived, it was hard for me to get them in here, because they didn't feel comfortable," Pitts said. "Now I see a much bigger comfort level. They are coming in bigger numbers, and they want to help their children."