Half of Oklahoma City Public Schools is Hispanic and many of those students are new to the English language, which creates a language barrier that can be challenging to students, parents and teachers.

“It’s a barrier, but they can break it,” Alexiss Lopez told The Oklahoman.

Lopez is a bilingual paraprofessional in the district who is taking part in The Foundation’s new Bilingual Teacher Pipeline Project. This program is paying the tuition of bilingual paraprofessionals to become certified teachers in the district.

You can read more about this program in The Oklahoman’s article here.

You can also a video from NewsOK on the program below.