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Prince George's County school officials hope a new family academy in Hyattsville will help keep English- and Spanish-speaking parents involved in their children's education.

The Triumphant Family Academy will offer classes in both English and Spanish to help educate parents about the school system and how they can take a more active role in their children's academic progress.

The academy is a partnership between the school system and two churches, the English-speaking Triumphant Baptist Church and the Spanish-speaking Temple of Spiritual Renewal, which share the same building on Riggs Road. Academy classes will be held at the church building.

"The whole purpose of it is really to empower our parents," Superintendent William Hite said Sunday at the academy's kickoff session. "So they know where to go to access resources [and] they know how to support their children at home."

Hite said the academy was, in part, a response to the loss of the county's more than 200 parent liaisons — who often acted as interpreters — due to budget cuts last year.

"We were going to be moving toward these kinds of academy structures anyway. However, we had to accelerate that when we lost the funding for the parent liaisons," Hite said.

Board of Education member Amber P. Waller (at-large), who helped organize the academy with the Triumphant Church's pastor, T.L. Rogers, said each school usually had "only one parent liaison, and that one person could only reach so many persons."

Waller said the academy structure improves on the liaison program because it would allow the schools to reach out to more people.

"We're able to serve the entire family," said Waller, who hopes the academy could draw 150 to 200 people.

Assistant Pastor Gerson Sommariba said Sunday at least 25 people from the Spanish-speaking congregation had already signed up.

The academy will serve families from the Hyattsville-area César Chavez, Ridgecrest, Chillum and Rosa L. Parks elementary schools and Nicholas Orem Middle School. Once a month, parents will be able to take classes in the goals and organization of the county school system, the importance of report cards and grade-point averages and the function of charter schools.

Educating parents in these areas will help them play a more active role in children's education and teach them how to help students succeed, Hite said.

Separate classes will be taught in English and Spanish. The academy will also offer English as a Second Language classes twice a week.

Academy classes will begin Sept. 20 and the ESL lessons will begin Sept. 28.

Dora Gonzales of Hyattsville said she was eager to improve her English at the academy so she could understand what her children were doing in school and be more attentive to their education. Gonzales' two sons, aged 17 and 15, attend High Point High in Beltsville.

"[The academy will] help parents be better parents and help them be able to navigate the maze of the school system," Rogers said. "I'm confident that this is going to make a difference in the schools in this area."

dleaderman@gazette.net