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Is your child an emergent bilingual student?
An emergent bilingual student is a student whose language at home is not English and who is in the process of learning English.
Is your emergent bilingual child eligible for special education services?
A student is eligible for special education services if that student has a disability and that disability impacts their educational performance, which may include their academic performance, their ability to communicate with others, their social skills, their activities of daily living, and their behaviors at school.
School districts cannot deny your child special education services because he or she cannot speak, read, listen to, or write English. At the same time, an inability to communicate in English or gaps in a child’s education does not mean your child needs special education services.
Special education evaluations must be done in your child’s dominant language in order to provide accurate information regarding your child’s educational and developmental needs.
My emergent bilingual child was found eligible for special education services. What’s next?
If your child is found eligible for special education and related services, he or she will have an Individualized Education Program (“IEP”). The IEP will be based on your child’s individual needs, which can include academic, social, behavioral, emotional, communication and functional needs. Your child’s IEP will have services and supports to meet those needs.
Students with disabilities often need accommodations (special assistance) when taking tests or completing classwork (extra time, read aloud, etc.) It is possible that your child will need accommodations related to both their disability and their limited English language skills such as, for example, having tests read aloud in your child’s native language.
In addition to services that address the disability, your child may have special needs as an English Bilingual Student that the IEP team should discuss. The IEP should say which supports and services will be provided in English and which will be provided in your child’s native language. It should also state whether one or more of his teachers or other staff will need to be bilingual (speak English and your child’s native language) and if so, which ones.
The school must communicate with you in a language and form that is accessible to you.
All notices and special education documents, including IEPs, behavior intervention plans, evaluations, IEP goal progress reports, and any special education document that the school asks you to sign, regarding your child must be in your native language (the language you speak at home).
ARD meetings must be conducted in your native language if you are unable to speak English. Trained interpreters should provide a word-for-word interpretation of the ARD meeting and be provided free of charge to non-English speaking parents. The school should also make sure you understand the many technical words, terms, and acronyms that they use.
In addition, your child’s school should talk to you about how your student is doing in your native language and what different services and supports are available to your student and how they are being provided.
The school should tell you about your educational rights and protections, which are called procedural safeguards, in your native language. These safeguards include disagreeing with the ARD committee’s decision, filing a complaint with the Texas Education Agency, and requesting a due process hearing if you believe that the school has broken laws related to providing special education to your child.
Our comprehensive resource on this topic will be published soon, so check back.
Publication Code: ED50
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Disclaimer: Disability Rights Texas strives to update its materials on an annual basis, and this handout is based upon the law at the time it was written. The law changes frequently and is subject to various interpretations by different courts. Future changes in the law may make some information in this handout inaccurate.
The handout is not intended to and does not replace an attorney’s advice or assistance based on your particular situation.
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