COVINGTON, Ky. — Employees working for the city of Covington are going back to the classroom to brush up on their Spanish. They’re doing it to better serve the city’s fast-growing population of Spanish speakers.

What You Need To Know

  • City of Covington employees are taking an eight-week Spanish course

  • The idea came when one city worker had a frustrating experience with a language barrier

  • Covington has a growing Spanish-speaking population

  • One worker says "I think this is one of the best things the city has done"

John Hammons, the city’s Community Development Block Grant home program coordinator, said he’s hoping he’ll be able to communicate more strongly with people who come into his office by the end of the eight-week course. The people who come in who only speak Spanish usually have to come in with an interpreter.

“This will be a great benefit for me. I’ll be able to converse with them, and not have to rely on somebody being there that day and that time,” Hammons said. “I run a home buyer assistance program. And we’ve translated that into Spanish. So we try to be more inclusive and serve underserved populations.”

Covington’s Solid Waste and Recycling Coordinator Stephanie Bacher is also a member of Covington’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee.

The idea for the course came from a frustrating experience she had.

“In my daily work I went through an interaction where I was trying to communicate with a Covington business owner and was unable to because of a language barrier. What normally would’ve been a simple interaction to discuss trash and recycling was just nothing. The woman could not understand me. I could not understand her,” Bacher said. “I think at the time we had maybe two fluent Spanish speakers here at the city, and that ratio was a little off.”

According to the city, the number of “Latino” residents—as defined by the federal government—in Covington more than doubled between the 2010 and 2020 U.S. Census to 7.1%, and that population is widely thought to be under-counted.

“It’s not feasible for us to not be able to communicate and work for all residents,” Bacher said. “I felt a huge responsibility to be able to bridge that gap.”

Nine city employees enrolled in the initial program offered through Silva Languages, LLC in Florence. Fares da Silva, president of Silva Languages, teaches the course.

Classes take place twice a week. They started in October and run through the end of November. The program emphasizes learning to communicate through interaction, utilizing text audio and video.

“We’re trying to learn conversational Spanish, also a little bit about the culture as much as we can in the kind of short time frame that we have,” Hammons said. “We’re learning a lot. Everybody’s getting better. You can tell each class we’re speaking more fluently. It’s been very enjoyable. I wish I had had the same kind of attitude I have now back in high school or college.”

Hammons said he wants to continue to refine his Spanish, and that it’s already helped him to communicate better with Spanish-speaking people around him.

“I was picking up things that I in no way would’ve picked up before. So it was just amazing to be able to do that, and know that that’s a skill that I have now that the city is giving me. And I’ll be able to translate that to help families moving into the city of Covington,” he said. “Inclusiveness is important. I would like to keep learning. I think this is one of the best things the city has done as far as training.”

Students in the initial class will take a “Spanish II” class in January. At that point, the city will start another “phase one” class. Key positions in divisions such as Code Enforcement, Solid Waste, and Parks & Recreation, and others will benefit from the course.

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