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Parents and experts tell Arlington ISD board delays, uncertified interpreters impede deaf students' access
Summary
Three public commenters — a UTA professor of deaf studies and two parents of deaf preschool children — told the Arlington ISD Board of Trustees the district is slow to register transfer students and repeatedly provides uncertified or absent ASL interpreters, calling for system changes and better records access.
Three speakers at the Arlington ISD Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 2 urged the board to change district practices for deaf students, saying registration delays, gaps in interpreter services and difficulty obtaining education records harmed children and families.
Dr. Lisa Lee Egbert, who identified herself as a University of Texas at Arlington professor and an expert in ASL and deaf studies, said registering two nephews in Arlington schools took five weeks. “We tried to register, 1 in high school, for 5 weeks. We tried. We called your office, called the school,” she told trustees during open forum. “If I got ahold of a person, they'd say, 'I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to do.'”
Why it matters: Commenters said the problems affected basic access — attendance, classroom participation and family engagement — and that current practices fall short for families who are already navigating medical and community systems. The parents also said the district’s record access process is slow, incomplete, or costly when pursued through public-records or FERPA channels.
Parent Emily Wingard spoke about her daughter, a deaf pre-K student, and described a pattern of missing services and sparse documentation. “Every therapy, every appointment, every phone call, meeting, researching, learning a new language,” she said. “Only to send that child off into the hands of the school district and have them tell you that all of those things suddenly aren't necessary anymore.”
Parent Nick Comerford stressed the right of parents to see their child's education records and described repeated obstacles when he and his wife sought their daughter's files. “When we ask for changes or additional services, the response is always the same. The data doesn't support it. The data shows that she's not ready. Okay, can we see the data?” Comerford asked trustees. He said district responses to open-records requests were slow and incomplete, and that some documents cited at IEP meetings were missing from the materials parents received.
Discussion vs. action: All three speakers were in the public-comment portion of the meeting; the board did not take formal action on these requests during the session. Trustees and administrators did not make commitments on the record to implement specific changes that night.
Context and district role limits: Commenters urged improvements in registration processes, interpreter hiring and certification standards, and record access. The speakers also emphasized that some of the failures they described — for example, interpreters who are not certified or whose “register” does not match a deaf parent’s needs — are practice and procurement issues under district control. Several speakers asked that the district require certified interpreters and improve the district-level coordination of transfers and IEP documentation.
What speakers asked for next: The public speakers sought systemic changes including faster and clearer registration for transfer students, guaranteed access to qualified ASL interpreters for parents and students, and full, timely access to education records used in IEP or eligibility decisions.
Ending: The board received the comments during the open-forum period and moved on to reports. No formal motions or staff directions related to these comments were recorded in the meeting minutes for Oct. 2.
