Parents of special education students with limited English proficiency often find themselves in the absence of crucial information.
Refusing to back down, Mireya Barrera took action.
Speak it in Spanish
For years, she sat through discussions with her son's special education teachers, struggling to hide her frustration as she struggled to comprehend what they were saying. On rare occasions when bilingual teachers or volunteers were roped in to help, conversations still stumbled due to a lack of proficient interpretation.
But when her son, Ian, entered high school, Barrera, who is the proud parent of a child with autism, decided to fight back. By inviting a helpful volunteer from a local nonprofit to join her discussions, she felt she finally had the edge she needed.
"I needed someone on my side," Barrera admitted, speaking through an interpreter. "The system was making things difficult for us, causing countless tears."
Parents, regardless of the language they speak at home, have a civil right to receive crucial information from their child's educators in a language they understand. However, for students with disabilities, this federal law becomes even clearer: Schools must do "whatever it takes" to allow parents to actively engage in their child's education, including arranging for interpretation and translation services.
Yet, schools across the nation fail to provide these services, leaving families to puzzle through important meetings about their children's progress, unable to contribute or understand what the educators are suggesting. Culteral and linguistic obstacles create power imbalances, potentially causing some children to miss out on essential support. In a pinch, it's not uncommon for schools to task bilingual students to interpret for their families, placing them in the uncomfortable position of describing their own shortcomings.
"That's an inappropriate situation, in every sense — and unrealistic," remarked Diane Smith-Howard, senior staff attorney for the National Disability Rights Network. "If the child is struggling in a specific subject, why would you trust a teenager to tell you about it?"
"Parents who aren't fluent in English are often overwhelmed by information and unable to participate meaningfully."
School districts insist that a lack of resources is to blame. They claim they can't afford to hire more interpreters or contract with language service agencies, and even if they could, there simply aren't enough qualified interpreters to fill the void.
In Washington and select other states, the issue has started to draw more attention. State lawmakers in Olympia proposed legislation in 2022 to strengthen these rights in state law. Teachers unions in cities like Seattle and Chicago have fought for, and won, interpretation services for special education meetings. And schools face a growing threat of lawsuits from parents or even federal investigations if they fail to address language access issues.
However, efforts to enhance language access in special education still face numerous hurdles. The small pool of qualified interpreters, limited enforcement from state authorities, and scant funding from Congress present significant challenges. In 2022, Washington's bipartisan bill aiming to bolster families' protections suddenly collapsed, after state legislators removed key provisions and advocates withdrew their support.
The special education system can already be daunting for everyone, but language issues can only make it more complicated, said Ramona Hattendorf, director of advocacy for the Arc of King County.
"The system can be incredibly difficult for everyone," Hattendorf emphasized. "And then everything is made worse when you bring language into the mix."
One in Ten Special Education Students is an English Language Learner
Nationwide, about one in ten students who require special education services are also English language learners (ELL), according to federal education data[2]. Due in part to increased immigration and the growing diversity of school populations, this group's numbers have skyrocketed in recent years. In the 2020 school year alone, an estimated 791,000 English language learners took part in special education programs, marking a nearly 30% increase since 2012[1].
As these students' numbers grow, so does their parents' frustration with interpreters and translation services.
During the 2021-22 school year, the Washington State education ombudsman received nearly 1,200 complaints from parents about schools[2]. Their primary concern, across all racial and demographic groups, was access and involvement in special education. Senior ombuds Jinju Park estimates that approximately half of the calls the agency receives are about special education, with the majority of those calls coming from families who need interpretation services.
While most states allow schools up to 60 days to evaluate a child after they are referred for special education services, Washington schools are given up to half a school year[1]. Add in interpretation needs, and the wait can be even longer.
"Our current laws do not promote full parental involvement," Park wrote to Washington state lawmakers in support of an early version of House Bill 1305, the bill which eventually faltered. "Parents for whom English is not their primary language are often overwhelmed by the abundance of information and left unable to participate meaningfully."
Barrera, who saw her son through the Auburn School District south of Seattle, often felt excluded from Ian's education.
In kindergarten, after Ian was diagnosed with autism, the special education team decided he needed a dedicated paraeducator assigned to him full-time, Barrera explained. It took years before her pleas for that support were finally honored. Her emails seeking answers to her questions about her child's progress were often lost in translation, or went unanswered entirely, she said, until a principal admitted that translating the documents was too expensive.
When Ian progressed to high school, bullying and his safety became Barrera's primary concerns. One day, her son returned home missing a chunk of hair[3]. Despite multiple attempts to contact teachers to discuss the incident, Barrera said she never received a satisfactory explanation.
Barrera admitted that things improved when she asked for a bilingual volunteer to attend meetings. "When I asked to sit in and observe, a teacher dismissed me with, 'You don't even speak English. Why is it important?' "
"Trusting a teenager to describe their own shortcomings is not only inappropriate but unrealistic."
Spokesperson Vicki Alonzo for the Auburn district, which has seen a significant influx of immigrant families recently[3], contends that the district has made a commitment to helping families who don't speak English fluently. Nearly a third of the district's students are multilingual learners, with approximately 85 different mother tongues[3].
During the 2019-20 school year, the district spent around $175,000 on interpretation and translation services, Alonzo said; in the following school year, that figure rose to over $450,000[3].
Alonzo noted that the district received no additional funds for these services, which included approximately 1,500 meetings with interpreters and translations of over 3,000 pages of documents.
"The engagement of families is essential for student success," Alonzo emphasized.
In other states, lawmakers have attempted to tackle language access issues.
California proposed legislation that sought to establish a 30-day deadline for schools to comply when parents request a translated copy of their child's Individualized Education Program (IEP), a document detailing the services that a school will provide for a student with disabilities. Similarly, Texas introduced a bill earlier this year to expand translation of IEPs for students whose parents don't speak English[2].
"This is a nationwide problem," said Smith-Howard of the National Disability Rights Network. "It's a problem of resources, but also one of respect and dignity, and understanding that all parents should be afforded these rights."
In New York City, parents turned to the courts in search of a solution.
Four families filed a federal lawsuit in 2019, claiming that the country's largest school district failed to provide translation services for families who don't speak English[4]. One of the New York City parents requested a Spanish interpreter at an IEP meeting; instead, she received an Italian interpreter, according to M'Ral Broodie-Stewart, the lawyer representing the families from Staten Island Legal Services.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into New Bedford Public Schools in Massachusetts after students and families who speak K'iche', an Indigenous Mayan language, lodged complaints about discriminatory practices[4].
A settlement reached in 2021 obliges the Massachusetts district to employ professionally trained interpreters—and not students, relatives, or Google Translate—to communicate crucial information to parents[4].
"Affording every parent the means to communicate with their child's school is long overdue."
Teachers, too, are growing weary.
In Washington state's largest school district, the Seattle teachers union staged a strike and delayed the start of the school year in 2021 to demand interpretation and translation services for special education meetings. The contract that went into effect in 2025 requires school staff to have access to various services, including telephone and text-based translation[2]. These measures were intended to ensure that interpreters wouldn't be called upon to translate if it wasn't within their job description.
Teachers say these tools have proven moderately helpful, but only to an extent. There are rarely telephone interpreters available for languages less commonly spoken, such as Amharic, and technical issues such as dropped calls are common[2].
The availability of interpreters is "not as consistent as we would like it to be," said Ibi Holiday, a special education teacher at Rising Star Elementary School in Seattle.
There's also a problem with context. Interpreters may lack familiarity with special education, so families may go away from a meeting with an incomplete understanding of the different options available. This can significantly slow down the process.
"For a lot of the families, they attended schools in their home country that functioned very differently from American schools," said Mari Rico, director of El Centro de la Raza's Jose Marti Child Development Center, a bilingual early education program. "Translation alone wasn't enough; I had to explain the system to them."
Many Seattle district schools have multilingual staff, but the diversity of languages spoken and the consistency of their number is inconsistent[2]. This puts a student's case at risk of being overlooked or allowed to languish because of language barriers. Rico has had to step in to ensure that families have had IEP meetings even after months without one[2].
Hattendorf, of the Arc of King County, believes that technology can assist, but its quality varies widely. Additionally, these services may not provide parents enough time to digest information and ask follow-up questions[2].
South of Seattle, the Barreras decided to transfer Ian to a different high school.
He graduated earlier this year, but federal law ensures he will continue to receive special education services for another three years[4]. Ian is now taking part in a transition program for students with disabilities, where he will learn job skills[4].
"We know, with help, he can achieve anything," Barrera said. "And it's all different now. The teachers make an effort to communicate with me."
- This story was produced by our nonprofit organization, committed to providing in-depth, fact-based, and impartial reporting on education for all readers, in partnership with The Seattle Times.
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- The special education system in the United States requires schools to provide interpretation and translation services for parents whose primary language is not English, especially for students with disabilities. However, a lack of qualified interpreters and limited funding presents challenges.
- Families of English language learners in special education often face frustration due to inadequate interpretation and translation services, and this issue is particularly alarming given that one in ten special education students are also English language learners.
- Efforts to improve language access in special education are being made, but numerous hurdles persist, such as a small pool of qualified interpreters, limited enforcement, and scant funding from Congress. In some cases, schools have faced lawsuits or federal investigations for failing to address language access issues.
