New America, a policy and research organization, organized a panel webinar to address the latest research and practices of students who are multilingual learners with disabilities or who we call dually identified students. The title of the panel webinar was “How Can We Better Support Dual Language Learners with Disabilities?” In this webinar we heard from leading researchers in this area including Dr. Lillian Duran, Dr. Sara Kangas, Dr. María Cioè-Peña, Elizabeth Burr. The conversation focused on problems and solutions for educators in the field working with this population of students. For ex ..read more

In this webinar, you will hear three presenters Sara V Niño, Jessica Lander, Akira Gutierrez Renzulli, Diana I Santiago, Esq., and Claudia Rinaldi, Ph.D. discuss the current challenges, successes, and opportunities to support multilingual learners who are learning English and who may also have a disability. From the perspective of a K-12 educator, professional developer, Education Lawyer, policy analyst, and professor in teacher education, come and listen about latest research and its connections to practice in the field. The webinar recording is available and free https://solutions.edc.org/so ..read more

In this link, you will find a Telenovela that explains the special education process to Latino/Hispanic parents and how to navigate it in culturally sustaining ways. Arlington (VA) Public Schools, created a telenovela. Yes, you heard correctly, La Sopa de la Abuela is a telenovela that explains the special education referral and evaluation process for Latino/Hispanic parents. It is a great resource to any school district, educational leader, and educator — see link https://www.apsva.us/parent-resource-center/telenovela ..read more

In this webinar, presenters discuss the MA Dyslexia Guidelines. The introduction has representation and landscape presentation of multilingual and multilingual students who are dually identified with disabilities in the US. The second part presents the role of MTSS in the process of identification and presents two case studies to show how the special education evaluation should be individualized, and the last section addresses what educators and educational leaders can bring back to their schools and districts. To access the webinar click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TCFBe6XDxk ..read more

If you remember the Bilingual Special Education Interface book by Leornard Vaca and Hermes Cervantes in 2003, you will be excited to see this newly updated publication in the field. Profs. Gliset Colόn and Tamara O. Alsace , the editors of the book, Bilingual Special Education for the 21st Century: A New Interface (ISBN: 9781799890430) recently published this book that brought together various authors addressing the unique needs of bilingual and multilingual learners with disabilities. The chapter authors, including myself, present the latest research supporting students who are bil ..read more

In this 2023 article “The forgotten language skill: Finding a prominent place for listening in meaningful programming for multilingual learners with learning disabilities, author Tracy G. Spies explains the role of listening comprehension and its importance in learning English in the US. She provides an in-depth summary of the research in this area and makes a strong argument as to why we need to bring it back to the teaching of multilingual/bilingual students in the general and special education classroom as part of comprehensive model of reading instruction that address all areas of literacy ..read more

Last year, I delivered an online webinar for the Bilingual Educators Virtual Submit. The Bilingual Educators submit is a group of bilingual teachers committed ..read more

Join others this Thursday, June 9, 2020 @ 2 pm (EST)to express your concerns, experiences, and thoughts about advocacy andsupporting multilingual learners with and without disabilities. This free online forum that will focus on the developing and sharing of advocacy skills to express ..read more

In this section of the CGS report, I will give a quick synopsis of teacher preparation across 53 of the 75 reporting largest public school districts in the US. For access to the report please click on the link and go to page 91. The section begins by sharing how difficult it is to capture this information because each state requirements may seem the same but the discrete requirements may be different.  However, there are several interesting findings of the 53 reporting member districts of the largest public school districts in the US. Of the 53 districts, only 4(7%) reported that teacher ..read more

The last few weeks have been very difficult times for all Americans as we see injustices happening each day. It is also a time to be grateful for those of us who are advocating for social justice in our communities, states and country. Our demands to address justice, equity and drive inclusion are needed. Given all the coverage in the news and the coverage in our communities and homes, I think it is important to share some great resources on how to speak to children about social justice. Understood.org has a guide for parents who speak Spanish on how to talk to their children about social jus ..read more