How Can School Districts Better Support English Learners With Disabilities?

Lizdelia Piñón has more than 20 years of experience in bilingual and ESL education in both K-12 as well as higher education. She has worked as a bilingual/ESL teacher, university instructor and graduate research assistant in education. Her areas of expertise include bilingual education, ESL (both K-12 and adult learning) programs and educational implementations. Growing up in Chicago, she attended as a student one of the first dual language programs from prekindergarten through eighth grade.

Silvia Lenhof DeRuvo is a nationally recognized expert with 4 decades of experience in providing special education technical assistance to teachers and leaders at the school, district, university, and state levels with an emphasis on coherent instructional practices for students with IEPs and multilingual learners with disabilities. Her work centers on training educators on using accessible, evidence-based instruction and intervention supports through an inclusive practices framework.

Sara E.N. Kangas, is an associate professor in the College of Education at Lehigh University. As an applied linguist, her research focuses on the K-12 population of multilingual learners (MLs) with disabilities. In her school-based studies, Dr. Kangas investigates opportunity to learn for MLs with disabilities, with particular attention to the ways in which education policies, school structures, and ideologies affect their everyday learning experiences. Her research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation and published in scholarly venues such as the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Language Policy, and TESOL Quarterly, among other journals. Dr. Kangas’ recently published book, Promoting Equity for Multilingual Learners with Disabilities (Teachers College Press, 2025) examines and challenges the systemic barriers MLs with disabilities encounter in their schooling.