MENIFEE -- Spanish-speaking parents with children in Menifee schools are getting free lessons in various topics as part of a program designed to help them with the basics of managing their homes and caring for their families.

Dolores Marquez, a Sun City mother of three, said the classes help her do all she can for her family.

"I'm learning about things like how to buy healthier food by looking at labels for calories and salt content," said Marquez, one of the few parents in the class who is fluent in English. "You want to do things like buying food that's healthy for your family. You want to give your family the best."

Marquez said she has been to all of this year's series of parenting classes offered by the Menifee Union School District. Topics include money management, nutrition for families, and computer use and the Internet. The program, paid for with federal funds, is in its fourth year.

Each two-hour long lesson is held at 8:30 a.m. every Thursday at Menifee Valley Middle School's English Language Department office, Room 105. Classes started Sept. 6. The last class is scheduled for Dec. 13, while another cluster of courses will be held in the spring.

Marquez was one of 10 people who attended this week's session. The class centered around student grade-point averages -- what they are, how they are calculated and why they are important.

Normally, 16 to 20 parents show up for class each week, Claudia Burt, a Menifee Union community aide for English language learners said. Twenty is the maximum per class.

Burt said she believes a morning rain Thursday may have prompted some people to skip class. But the rain didn't keep Mirta Arroyo, a Murrieta mother of three children, away from class. She said she was glad she showed up, because she did not know anything about grade-point averages before.

"I feel better now that I understand how this works," Arroyo said in an interview after class, aided by a translator. "I know now that I have to push my kids a bit to get good grades so they can move on to high school and maybe even college."

Participants are allowed to come to as many or as few classes as they want. Last year, about 150 parents attended at least one of the numerous classes compared to about 100 parents in the year before that, Burt said. Although the program does not include child care, each parent is allowed to bring one child. Supervision of the child is the parent's responsibility.

Burt said she believes the program has been helpful in making Latino families -- where the primary language spoken at home is Spanish -- feel as if they are part of the school community.

"Before, they would hesitate to ask questions," Burt said. "Now, after we've had this program for a while, Latino parents seem to feel more comfortable with the district. They know we have resources to help them."

"If there is information given in Spanish, it is easy to understand," added Burt, who is originally from Columbia. "But that doesn't mean that a Spanish-speaking person in America doesn't want to learn English."

Burt said the district's separate, federally funded classes to teach English to any Spanish-speaking adult in the community are full. The district is working with Mt. San Jacinto College to offer these classes. English learners are not charged for the lessons.

For information about the parenting classes, or English language classes, call (951) 244-6872.

Contact staff writer Lorell Fleming at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2621, or at lfleming@californian.com.