The Law as Relief in Unprecedented Times: A Testimony

Below is a testimony submitted by MAC Senior Attorney Diana Santiago to the Boston Bar Foundation. Click here to read testimonies from other legal services attorneys.

COVID-19 Cases per 100,000 people in Massachusetts as of March 7, 2021: White: 4,476; Black/African-American: 7,469; Hispanic/Latino - 15,556. Race categories are mutually exclusive and defined as not Hispanic or Latino. Source: The COVID Tracking Project

My name is Diana Santiago and I am a senior attorney at Massachusetts Advocates for Children and director of MAC’s Proyecto Acceso a la Educación Especial (“Proyecto Acceso”). Through Proyecto Acceso, MAC offers Helpline assistance and legal representation to Latinx families of children with disabilities in special education matters, provides educational workshops for Latinx parents, and leads coalition and community partners in systemic advocacy to address the particular barriers that Latinx families of children with disabilities face navigating the special education process.

I am grateful to the Boston Bar Foundation for supporting MAC’s work and for the opportunity to highlight the challenges of Latinx families of children with disabilities during the past year.

Higher rates of COVID in Latinx communities have resulted not only in devastating illness, but in disproportionate job loss, food and housing insecurity, death, and innumerable other stressors. In the midst of these stressors are Latinx children, who, as a group, have been learning remotely for longer than most other groups of children. For MAC clients, the parents of children with disabilities, remote learning since March of 2020 has meant taking on the role of teacher, paraprofessional, speech therapist, occupational therapist, and school counselor, among many other roles, with limited support too often given in a language they do not understand. Although the law requires that school districts provide interpretation and translation, many districts provide very little by way of language access.

“Why did they report me instead of offering to help?”

One Spanish speaking parent of a young child with autism contacted MAC after school staff had contacted the Department of Children and Families (DCF) because her son was not logging into remote classes. This parent has struggled with the technology required for remote learning largely due to language barriers, and, due to his disability, her son has great difficulty sitting in front of the screen for longer than 5 minutes at a time. Despite these barriers, she regularly picked up packets of assignments and materials from her son’s school so that she could support him at home while also caring for a newborn who had been born prematurely. To make matters worse, for a period of time, the whole family was infected with COVID. Her question to me was, “Why did they report me instead of offering to help?” Had she been provided with the training and support she needed, she would have been better equipped to support her son. Fortunately, her son has now returned to school in person. MAC is working with the parent to access COVID compensatory services as a way for him to recoup skills lost due to not receiving vital special education services.

There are signs of positive change due to parents’ advocacy and dedicated educators. For example, the COVID situation has highlighted for many districts the value of hiring bilingual educators. Many school districts, however, have work to do to build trust when so many Latinx families feel that they have been misunderstood and their children overlooked for years. MAC is hopeful that, in collaboration with families, educators, and community and legal service partners, we can build support for Latinx parents of children with disabilities and increase public recognition of the crucial role they play in their childrens’ education.