69传媒

English Learners

How Special Ed. and English-Learner Teachers Can Collaborate: A Guide

By Ileana Najarro 鈥 October 19, 2023 4 min read
Waist-up view of early 30s teacher sitting with 11 year old Hispanic student at library round table and holding book as she pronounces the words.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

For years, researchers have called for district leaders to accommodate collaboration in planning and instruction for English learners to ensure these students are everyone鈥檚 priority within a district and they receive adequate services.

Cross-departmental collaboration, in particular, can be incredibly beneficial for these students as in the case of increasing equitable access to career and technical education programs for English learners.

But during a session at this year鈥檚 WIDA conference, gathering researchers and school and district leaders alike to discuss best practices for English learners, the importance of guided collaboration was clearer for students identified both as English learners and as eligible for special education services. The WIDA consortium offers language assessments for English learners in close to 40 states.

Laura Byard, a multilingual lead and instructional coach at Andersen United Middle School, and Kate McNulty, the assistant principal at Hmong International Academy, both in the Minneapolis public schools district, spoke of how they created a collaboration tool for both special education and English-language-development teachers in their district.

Making sure there is no either/or mindset

Before any structured collaboration can happen between departments in a given school district, both Byard and McNulty reminded educators that all educators must treat these populations of students as a priority.

Specifically, they referred to a U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 Dear Colleague letter of January 2015. That letter reminds districts that they must provide both language-assistance and special education services to students who qualify for them: 鈥淒istricts must also inform a parent of an EL student with an individualized education program (IEP) how the language instruction education program meets the objectives of the child鈥檚 IEP,鈥 it notes.

鈥淭his is where you have those conversations, 鈥榳hat service is more important?鈥 This is where we draw the line to say 鈥榥o, they鈥檙e both important. They both have to happen and it鈥檚 up to us to figure out how this is going to work,鈥欌 McNulty said.

District leaders and teachers shouldn鈥檛 think of the special education department and the multilingual department as separate from each other and then both separate from general education classrooms, she added.

McNulty also pointed to research that found the national percentage of students exiting special education services each year is roughly 1.8 to 2.4 percent, with the majority of these students identified as having a speech disability.

Implementing a guided collaboration tool

As of spring 2023, there were 5,500 ELs in the Minneapolis public schools district which accounted for 17 percent of the student population. There were 5,700 students with IEPs, also about 17 percent of the student population, and 1,200 students identified as twice-exceptional or eligible for both special education and multilingual services, Byard said.

When both Byard and McNulty began working across the district to incentivize more intentional collaboration for those dually identified students, they found that some students were not getting adequate English-language-development services, with the common expression that 鈥渟pecial ed. trumps EL services.鈥

So they created a dual eligible collaboration tool to aid teachers. Here鈥檚 how it works:

  • Teachers create space and time at the beginning of the year to review the form.
  • They began conversations with questions such as: What is the role of the English-learner teacher? What is the role of the special education teacher?
    • The special education teacher documents a student鈥檚 IEP in a high-level way to share with the English learner teacher. The two can then discuss where there is an intersection in goals.
    • For instance, they identify places where they can work together on literacy, to find patterns within key language uses or certain language features that would be supportive of the student鈥檚 language expectations.
    • These intersections get documented in the tool and prompt more questions, such as how a disability impacts the ability to acquire academic and/or functional language.
  • These conversations, of trying to connect goals across services in the name of a student鈥檚 academic success, get documented for compliance and offer a clear roadmap for educators as they carry on collaboration more organically from there, Byard said.

Implementing the tool was not easy, however.

Special education teachers wondered how collaboration would work for nonverbal students, while English-language-development teachers worried they didn鈥檛 understand various disabilities.

鈥淲e had a lot of fear between both groups of educators. But once they started talking about the child, they were able to learn so much more from one another and then that really started a rich, just a rich, collaborative process,鈥 McNulty said.

Key to all this is time, support, and investment from district leaders, both McNulty and Byard said.

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69传媒
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What鈥檚 Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What鈥檚 Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide 鈥 elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

English Learners Opinion Teacher Tips for Supporting English Learners
69传媒' stress over learning a new language in a new environment can affect their academic success. Proper support can ease that.
11 min read
Conceptual illustration of classroom conversations and fragmented education elements coming together to form a cohesive picture of a book of classroom knowledge.
Sonia Pulido for Education Week
English Learners Explainer Undocumented 69传媒 Have the Right to a Free Education. This Is Why
A landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling protected undocumented students' access to free public education. Some lawmakers seek to overturn it.
8 min read
69传媒 at Valencia Newcomer School wait to change classes Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in Phoenix. Children from around the world are learning the English skills and American classroom customs they need to succeed at so-called newcomer schools. Valencia Newcomer School in Phoenix is among a handful of such public schools in the United States dedicated exclusively to helping some of the thousands of children who arrive in the country annually.
69传媒 at Valencia Newcomer School wait to change classes Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in Phoenix. Children from around the world are learning the English skills and American classroom customs they need to succeed at so-called newcomer schools. Under a 1982 Supreme Court precedent, public schools can't charge tuition to children who are new arrivals in the United States.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
English Learners English Learners With Disabilities: The Rules 69传媒 Have to Follow
69传媒 can't force English learners with disabilities to choose between special ed. and language instruction鈥攁nd other tips from OCR.
4 min read
Photo of teacher and blind student using braille slate.
E+
English Learners Q&A A Teacher Makes the Case for Using AI With English Learners
Sarah Said teaches her high school English learners how to responsibly use AI tools for language learning.
4 min read
Image of the concept of AI integrated into the classroom.
Stephanie Shafer for Education Week