Parents of children with special needs who require individualized lesson plans were getting translated materials too late in the process, education advocates said.
A bill recently passed in the Colorado Legislature will help expand access to translated education documents for parents who don’t speak English fluently and who have children with disabilities.
The bill passed Saturday known as HB 1623 will help expand access to translator and interpreter services and a separate bill would allocate a pool of $500,000 to which school districts can apply.
Parents and advocates have touted the need for translated documents related to an individualized education plan process, also known as an IEP, which is a lesson plan specifically designed for an individual K-12 student with special needs, such as a child with autism.
To develop an IEP, parents meet with school administrators and teachers on an annual basis. As required by federal law, parents must receive a final draft translated into their preferred language. But education advocates say the final draft comes too late in the process to allow parents to make changes or ask questions about the draft, which can include technical language.
Bri Buentello, a former special needs teacher and director of government affairs for Stand for Children Colorado, an education advocacy group, said the legislation is a long-awaited win for parents and community leaders in the state who have advocated for the expansion of services and resources.
“I’ve seen the disproportionate impact that a language barrier brings, specifically in Latino kids,” she said. “It’s going to drastically increase parental involvement in the IEP process. This is going to lead to us better serving students.”
The bill received bipartisan support and was sponsored by state Democratic Rep. Lorena Garcia, who is CEO of the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition and state Rep. Mary Young, also a Democrat who is a retired school psychologist and special education teacher.
“The parent is a crucial part of the team. Their feedback and knowledge as an expert on their child is just as important as the teacher’s expertise as an educator,” said Michelle Brenner, director of special education for the Boulder Valley School District.
The district has 56 schools with more than 31,000 students, according to its website. Latinos account for the second largest student demographic group (19.4%) after white students (67.4%).
Brenner noted how the district has taken the initiative in recent years to provide parents with additional orally translated conversations ahead of the IEP final draft, including providing families with English rough drafts and asking if they’d like to speak with someone in their preferred language to walk them through the materials.
Don McGinnis, manager of translation and interpretation services, said the district is ahead of the curb in providing comprehensive service compared to others, by centralizing a request system that deals with all of its requests for translation and interpretation.
“The technology itself is a huge component because it makes it a lot easier for us to get an overview of everything that’s happening in the district,” he said. “For a lot of school districts, they don’t have a centralized service. They just expect schools to take care of things themselves. And the schools aren’t professionals in arranging these types of services.”
Over the past year, the district has implemented a phased rollout of translating draft IEPs to two bilingual schools in Boulder and one in Lafayette because of their larger Spanish-speaking population. That has since been expanded to all of the district’s schools in the Lafayette region. McGinnis said the goal is to have a complete rollout for all the district’s schools in the next two years.
The costs of the district’s IEP-related services have grown from $35,000 in previous years to close to $100,000 this year. McGinnis said they have requested a budget increase of close to $200,000 for next year.
Their efforts have seen success. Brenner noted, anecdotally, community feedback has been positive and teachers have shared that their experiences have been smoother because of the steps taken by the district.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” she said. “We’ve got another expansion to do in this last phase to roll out districtwide. And then, I think, in addition to having the information to families, we need to we also need to provide learning for our families around how they can be involved.”