Advocacy That Transformed Access: Building Belonging Through a Bilingual Community Space

Advocacy for multilingual communities often begins with creating spaces where students and families can show up fully as themselves. At our school site in Northern California, one experience that reshaped our approach to accessibility and inclusion was the establishment of a bilingual lunch room- a dedicated space where students could eat, connect, and communicate freely in their home language with peers and staff.

The idea grew out of student voice. Many multilingual learners shared that they often avoided speaking their native language at school for fear of standing out or being misunderstood. In response, our English Language Development (ELD) team advocated for a designated space where linguistic diversity was not just accepted, but celebr