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Anais Bouguerra snacks on some popcorn at the Shawnee Mission School District’s multilingual community event as her mom, Hanane Chikhi, gets some information from KC Scholars representatives Rosie Rodriguez and Brian Hernandez. BETH LIPOFF Special to The Star

The Shawnee Mission School District wants every family to feel like they belong in the educational community. To help with the goal, the district held a multilingual community event aimed at making sure parents who don’t speak English well, or at all, have access to all the information their English-speaking counterparts do. After English, the languages with the most speakers in the Shawnee Mission district are Spanish, Arabic and Dari, according to Kaitlin Shulman, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging coordinator for the district. Translators for those languages were on hand to help at the event, held at Shawnee Mission West Sept. 16. Families who signed up for the event in advance could request a translator for whatever language they needed. The event grew out of a bilingual back-to-school night the district has been hosting for its Spanish-speaking families for several years. Shulman hoped that by moving the event to a school site and adding additional languages, the district could help more families find the information they need.