Latinos find place at school.

Byline: Karen McCowan / The Register-Guard

THE PACKED Clear Lake Elementary School cafeteria buzzed with laughter and conversation Monday night. Whole families gathered - not just parents and children, but aunts, uncles and grandparents. Over at the serving line, the Thanksgiving feast was spread: Your turkey. Your gravy. Your mole.

Your mole?

No - not mole, as in lawn-destroying rodent.

But mole (moe-lay), as in the spicy, chili-chocolate sauce that's a traditional holiday garnish for poultry among many Latino families. Parent Roberto Garcia, the evening's chef, couldn't imagine a Dia de Gracias - Day of Thanks - menu without it.

Nor, two years ago, could he have imagined 200 people attending one of the Bethel School District's monthly Latino Parent Nights.

"The first one we had, there were only four of us," he said, gesturing in amazement at the overflowing cafeteria tables.

Things have changed since that first session, agreed Maria Quinones, then new to Eugene and accustomed to more racially diverse schools in California.

"When I get here, I feel like I am the only one, the only Latino parent, who comes to visit at the school and make sure my children are doing well," she said.

While she wasn't the only one, it was clear that many Latino parents shied away from school involvement - whether due to feeling intimidated or language barriers.

So the district worked with already-involved parents such as Quinones and Garcia to launch a monthly event for Latino families.

The format was simple: Children would play in the gym while their parents gathered for informal socializing. All would share a potluck meal and a short presentation to help parents help their children succeed at school.

One particularly successful presentation: a field trip to the Eugene Public Library's new Bethel branch.

"So many of the children and parents who got library cards that night have come back again and again," said branch librarian Carolyn Forde. They check out books and videos. They use the Internet to check plane fares or correspond with faraway relatives.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE development teacher Isabel Kelly credits Latino Parent Night with helping her school reach a new zenith in parent involvement: Fairview Elementary saw 100 percent turnout among Latino parents at recent parent-teacher conferences.

The sense of support among Latino parents led Garcia and his wife to keep their children in Bethel schools even after moving into the Eugene School District.

"Look how big of a turnout we have!" said Garcia, who works in a long-established family business. "You can see in people's faces how glad they are to be here. Maybe they wear the best thing that they have."

Alex Rodriguez, attending his first parent night, couldn't stop beaming. He'd brought his aunt and cousin, who just moved here from El Salvador. All were thrilled to learn that Fairview teacher Olga Mendoza also came from their Salvadoran hometown, Armenia.

Sprinkled among the Latino families Monday night were district officials, from school board members to Superintendent Kent Hunsaker. The parents invited them as a way to say thanks for supporting the gatherings.

Quinones is so grateful for them, that she and her children drove all the way from their new home in Woodburn to attend the Dia de Gracias.

"The parent nights help a lot," she said.

Garcia agreed:

"There's a lot we can do for each other."

BUTTON, BUTTON, who's got the button - remember the tactile sensations of that childhood game? Eugene resident Kate Joost hopes to recreate that sense of warm, human-to-human contact in the button grieving strings she's making to send to New York and Washington, D.C., as a gesture of condolence.

All need to be shank-style, rather than flat. But she welcomes both everyday buttons and those significant to the losses of Sept. 11 - particularly buttons from military, firefighter and police uniforms.

She's already collected some with powerful stories.

"These are Air Force officer's buttons - saw duty through three wars 1941-71," one contributor noted. "These elegant buttons adorned the fur coat of an Austrian Jewish refugee - 1939."

A 5-year-old contributed three favorites from his button box: two purple flowers and a big red one. He said they're "to help the families and the people in the airplane crashes to feel better."

Buttons can be left at the YMCA or Jamocha's Coffee Shop through Dec. 1, or you can contact Joost at 431-0966.