YAKIMA, Wash. — When Ana Bazadoni began attending Central Washington University, she didn’t know any English.

In class, she pretended to read or looked at the floor — anything to avoid speaking to the professor or her classmates.

Her husband persuaded her not to quit. Using him to translate, the two would spend hours each night going over the lectures she taped.

To her, having more bilingual teachers is a necessity to spur higher learning for Latinos.

“Now I can understand almost everything,” said 46-year-old Bazadoni, an accounting and business administration major graduating this spring. “I had a lot of trouble with English at the beginning.”

Bazadoni was one of about 160 students, educators and community leaders who took part in a discussion Monday about educational opportunities for Latinos. Some notable attendees included Kathleen Ross, outgoing president of Heritage University in Toppenish; state Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima; and state Rep. Norm Johnson, R-Yakima.

 The talk, hosted at Yakima Valley Community College, was a part of a nationwide listening tour conducted by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

YVCC was chosen as the delegation’s Washington stop because Yakima County’s Latino population tops 41 percent. The county’s schools, such as Heritage, also take pains to provide opportunities to underserved populations. 

The purpose of the tour is to ask people how Latino education can be improved and what the White House should do to help in those efforts. The discussion was led by Juan Sepulveda, executive director of the White House Initiative.

Sepulveda said his three main goals are to let people know the initiative exists, to get advice and ideas from around the nation and to implement the best practices and actions to increase student success.

“We know the more minds we put together on the issues, the more solutions we are going to get,” he said. “We know we don’t want to wait.”

The listening sessions began in July and will conclude this week. Sepulveda and his team visited 18 states and 40 communities during the tour, all of which have high or a growing number of Latinos — including Texas, California and Florida.

Although all the feedback has yet to be analyzed, Sepulveda said he’s heard many common themes.

Across the country, people are concerned about the quality of teachers and opportunities for leadership advancement. They’re concerned about the funding formula for public education, and they want improvements in early childhood education and parent involvement in schools.

Locally, these issues were addressed — in addition to worry about the high school dropout rate, dual-language programs, drug and alcohol prevention and after-school offerings.

Teodora Martinez-Chavez of Outlook said she’s anxious about the status of the Dream Act, a bill that would provide certain undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools the opportunity to earn conditional, permanent residency. The intent of the bill is to give these students a chance to go to college.

Martinez-Chavez said Latino students are encouraged to do well in high school. But if they’re undocumented, they are ineligible for federal financial aid and don’t have the means to continue their schooling.  

“It’s really sad,” she said. “To me, if someone is willing to go to college and give back to the community, it doesn’t make sense that they aren’t given the same opportunities.”

Sepulveda said the Obama administration is taking several steps to break down educational barriers, including increasing the value of Pell grants and simplifying the federal financial aid form. He’s hoping these forums will lead to additional suggestions on how to close the achievement gap.

Sepulveda added that there’s now more money available to help with the efforts — due to federal stimulus funding that included $100 billion for education.

The information shared during the listening tour is being analyzed and put into action now, such as through connecting people trying to achieve the same objectives, Sepulveda said.

All of the information is serving as the foundation for the new presidential executive order, which will be signed by President Barack Obama and govern the White House Initiative.

• Erin Snelgrove can be reached at 509-577-7684 or esnelgrove@yakimaherald.com.