Groundbreaking Support for an Underserved Group of Learners
Link to On Demand Resources: Practical Strategies for Supporting Immigrant Students with Disabilities - from the Immigrant Learning Center
Link to a Padlet of resources for history, civics, social studies and humanities teachers - from Emerging America
Setting the Stage
All too often, teachers of history, civics, social studies and humanities are left out of professional development for students who need additional support. Yet at Emerging America, that is our focus.
Ariana Moir, Education Program Manager at the Immigrant Learning Center (ILC) organized a powerfully useful event to support effective teaching of a profoundly underserved group: multilingual learners with disabilities. I was honored to present with two superbly qualified experts. My role was to share a framework and aligned curricula and other teaching tools for general education teachers.
I urge readers to view the webinar recording and slides posted by the ILC. That event page also offers key articles and instructional design resources from each presenter. Also browse the wide range of articles, curricula and other resources in my free Padlet for history, civics, social studies and humanities teachers on teaching multilingual learners with disabilities.
Brief Recap of the March 11, 2026 webinar
In the recording, Claudia Rinaldi, Ph.D., Lasell University provides a cogent overview of the topic. She clearly explains the distinct roles and responsibilities of special education educators, multilingual educators and general education teachers.
Close to one million (1.6%) U.S. public school students are dually identified as a student with a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B and as an English Learner (EL). Four fifths of these are taught in general education classrooms. (Overall, 13.74% of students are served under IDEA, and of those 11.78% are also identified as English Learners.)
Rinaldi points out that ELs with limited English are often incorrectly assigned to special education, while ELs with high levels of English proficiency are often not assigned to special education when they should be. One problem is that special education evaluation is overwhelmingly done in English even when that is not the first language of the student, leading to faulty evaluations.
Rinaldi expands in detail on how to apply a Multi-Tiered System of Support specifically for these students. This includes continuous progress monitoring and a range of evidence-based interventions, including an emphasis on oracy (speaking and listening), effective vocabulary instruction and literacy instruction. (Emerging America, in partnership with the Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies created resources applying these strategies with multilingual learners in the social studies.)
All three presenters emphasize the need for collaboration across areas of responsibility and with surrounding communities. All three also raised the centrality of teacher advocacy for these students within education systems.
My presentation offers Emerging America's Framework for Inclusion, centered on Universal Design for Learning and integration of narratives of immigrant and disabled Americans. (Rinaldi too stresses the need for general education teachers to use UDL.) I stress the utility of primary sources in a wide array of media and models simple inquiry-based approaches. History education must empower learners by exploring advocacy and innovative leadership by immigrants and people with disabilities. So I preview children's books and accessible lesson plans from Emerging America's Reform to Equal Rights: K-12 Disability History Curriculum.
Tamara Schlez, ADHD Coach and Engagement Coordinator, El Futuro describes her organization's Culturally Responsive Approaches for Latino Community and Students with ADHD. That work features active engagement to ensure family involvement, child empowerment, and effective, positive classroom interventions. Her presentation offers concrete details of how El Futuro puts that into practice.
Following an hour of presentations, Moir fielded 30 minutes of thoughtful questions for the panelists.
