Eugene School District 4J

Note: The information on this page is for 4J staff. 

• If you are a parent and you need interpreting / translation services, please contact your school.
• If you are a 4J employee, please know that we at the Communications Department have no access to Synergy and you need to complete the right form and follow instructions for your request.
• If you are a 4J bilingual staff and have the interest to serve as an in-house interpreter please fill out the: Interest to serve application

Padres de familia: Si necesitan a un intérprete, favor de contactar la escuela de su hijo/a o la oficina de aprendizaje de inglés (“ELL” en inglés). 

For a written translation of flyers, school signs, school PowerPoint presentations to parents, google forms, private parents letters in any language and any other communication between school and parents, please: Request a Written Translation

Questions? Contact Eugenia Sileoni

Translations services uses the expertise of our interpreters in Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Russian, the use of machine translation software for less common languages, and, as a last resource, Language Link.

The written translations take into consideration not only the language, but the culture, state and national educational jargon and legal requirements on equity and inclusion, among other 4J factors. In addition to performing language translation, we want to ensure that all text and images reflect the 4J brand and are presented in a way acceptable to the specific target audience: parents, students or monolingual personal. 

For an in-person interpreter, please submit the request an interpreter form with one-week advance minimum:

Request an Interpreter form available for:

• Spanish
• Simplified Chinese (Mandarin)
• French
• Arabic
• Korean
• Russian
• Ukrainian
• Hebrew

For any other World Language Interpreter, use the phone services by Language Link.

Request ASL Interpreter via Lane ESD. If you need further assistance regarding ASL interpretation, please contact Andrea Parker at aparker@lesd.k12.or.us or Annie Whiddon at awhiddon@lesd.k12.or.us)

Questions? Contact Dulce Guillén at guillen_d@4j.lane.edu 541-790-7709. 

• If interpretation can be provided by one of your 4J bilingual staff, with the employee consent of time and location, after requesting using the form above, please have your bilingual staff submit a New Assignment-form to the Communications Department to guillen_d@4j.lane.edu, to be covered under our communications budget.
• When an interpreter is unavailable to come to your location, we highly encourage a phone conference with a 4J bilingual staff before using the “Language Link” phone service.
  Language Link connects you with someone in minutes using a speakerphone or cell phone speaker. 
• Please keep in mind that a phone call by a 4J bilingual staff to explain written information sent home in English or in Spanish can also be an effective and personal way to create relationships and obtain parent engagement than just a written translation of the document. In this case, please upload any information to be communicated when making a request.
• Students should not be used as interpreters, especially when relaying academic or behavioral information to parents.
• When planning parent conferences scheduling, please consider interpreting needs from the start. Work in advance to group families within a certain time block. When a school does not have their own interpreter they should try to schedule parent conferences between 4-7 pm, when possible, to best mobilize our interpreters around their regular work schedule. Ideally, as many families as possible who need interpretation services in a given language should be grouped together on a given day or days.
• Will you need interpretation for multiple people in the same language at one in-person event? Talk and Listen Kits may be the answer. 4J offers this helpful tool for large group interpreting. An interpreter is set up with the voice-silencing PrivacyMic microphone, which is connected to a transmitter. Listeners in the audience are equipped with a receiver and listening device and can hear as a speaker presents, simultaneously in the desired language. Please note in your request if you feel this technology would be an asset in the setting you are requesting the interpreter for.

To apply to serve as an in-house interpreter: Fill out the online application