LYNN — The Latina Center Maria’s Escuela Latina celebrated its move to a new location.
Community members and elected officials gathered at the new location at 271 Western Ave. Saturday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Escuela Latina.
“This is an exciting moment for this organization,” Mayor Jared Nicholson said. “They have been at it for quite some time, and it’s amazing to see how far they’ve come.”
Executive Director Magalie Torres-Rowe founded Latina Center Maria eight years ago.
“Our mission is to empower the Latino community for education,” Torres-Rowe said, noting that 75% of the students in Lynn Public Schools are Latino. “The future of Lynn is Latinos.”
One of Escuela Latina’s offerings is English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
Torres-Rowe, an eighth-grade English teacher for Lynn schools, emphasized that learning English is crucial to the success of students and parents.
“I tell Latino parents, ‘You have to learn English,’” she said. “You can talk to the teachers when the grades are low on the progress report. You have five weeks for the kids to get improved grades and help them with school work.”
She said it is a myth that Latino people do not care about education.
“They care, they just don’t know the language,” Torres-Rowe said.
She said the key is to focus on mothers.
“When the kids have no help from mom, the kid will fail one class, two classes, fail the school year, and quit,” she said. “For Latino students, the rate of dropout is high.”
Torres-Rowe said she realized it is important to package ESL classes with parenting classes.
“If I’m teaching only parenting classes, some moms can come,” she said. “But if I’m teaching ESL, many moms come.”
Besides ESL and parenting classes, Escuela Latina offers citizenship classes, credit repair clinics, Spanish classes, book clubs, and movie nights.
State Rep. Peter Capano (D-Lynn) thanked the organization for contributing to the community.
“It’s great to see what Magalie started several years ago and how you’ve grown,” Capano said. “It’s great to see a lot of the same people still with the Marias and how you’ve expanded.”
