• By Lizdelia Piñón, Ed.D. • IDRA Newsletter • September 2025 • 
With a vote of 11 to 1 this month, the Texas State Board of Education approved the standards for a new bilingual special education teacher certificate. The credential is designed to prepare educators to serve students who are both emergent bilingual and receiving special education services.
After years of advocacy, advisory committee work and policy development, the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) in July adopted the rules for the certificate. Now that the state board has acted, the new certification exam should launch in September 2028.
Emergent bilingual students constituted 20% of public school students in Texas and 8% receive special education services (Latham Sikes & Villanueva, 2021). Emergent bilingual students with disabilities, sometimes called “dually identified students,” represent tens of thousands of children in Texas schools. Yet, until now, Texas has had no certification ensuring that teachers were fully prepared to serve them.
Often, these students are misidentified or denied access to appropriate services entirely. The new certificate seeks to correct this by preparing teachers to do the following.
- Integrate bilingual education and special education pedagogies;
- Apply evidence-based practices from both fields;
- Recognize students’ cultural and linguistic strengths as assets;
- Support collaborative, informed decision-making for referrals and placements; and
- Advocate for students and help build schoolwide capacity.
Texas’ adoption of the bilingual special education teacher certificate recognizes that emergent bilingual students with disabilities have unique needs.
Building the Standards
When the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2256 in 2021, it required the development of statewide standards for this new credential. The measure was born from the Texas Early Childhood English Learner Initiative, with IDRA serving as a steering committee co-leader with Texans Care for Children, Philanthropy Advocates, Dr. Dina Castro, UNT Denton, and the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children (TxAEYC).
After the bill’s passage, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) formed a statewide advisory committee, comprised of educators, researchers and advocates. TEA appointed me to represent IDRA on the committee.
Over the course of two years, we drafted and refined standards through working sessions, subgroup analyses and statewide roundtables. I co-presented the committee’s expert recommendations to SBEC in 2023, stressing the importance of equipping teachers with the tools to view language and disability through an asset-based lens. 
Aligning Standards with Assessment
In August, TEA and Pearson, an educational publisher, hosted a statewide framework review conference for the bilingual special education content advisory committee. I participated alongside educators to review the draft exam frameworks.
Our role was to ensure the frameworks reflect the breadth and depth of the certification standards. It was vital that they accurately capture the knowledge and skills educators must demonstrate and provide a fair, valid measure for teacher candidates across Texas.
This step translates broad standards into concrete exam expectations. For example, a future certification exam item might ask teachers to analyze how to support a dually identified student’s individualized education program (IEP) while ensuring the child continues to develop biliteracy.
The conference reaffirmed the importance of educator voice in shaping assessments that directly impact classroom practice. I personally brought my combined-lens as a scholar, educator and parent of students who are dually identified.
Our students are not problems to be fixed. They have strengths, languages, and identities that enrich our schools.
Implications for Families and Schools
For educators, the new certificate will represent a professional pathway to specialize in serving students who are dually identified. Teacher preparation programs will begin to align coursework and fieldwork to the new standards. In-service teachers may also pursue the certificate to strengthen their practice.
For families, the change offers assurance that their children will be taught by teachers with specific preparation to meet their needs, teachers who understand how to integrate disability support and bilingual instruction rather than treating them as separate or competing services.
For students, the impact can be transformative. Educators with the right training can ensure that emergent bilingual students with disabilities are not overlooked, misplaced or underestimated. Rather, they will have the opportunity they deserve to thrive academically, socially and emotionally.
Texas’ adoption of the bilingual special education teacher certificate recognizes that emergent bilingual students with disabilities have unique needs.
IDRA will continue to convene educators and families, sharing resources and advocating meaningful implementation as the certification process advances.
Resources
Craven, M., & Piñón, L. (April 2024). Navigating Policy Landscapes for Linguistic and Cultural Equity. IDRA Newsletter.
ECEL Initiative. (January 2021). Texas Early Childhood English Learner Initiative Policy Roadmap. Texas Early Childhood English Learner Initiative.
García, A. (June-July 2021). Exciting Advances for Emergent Bilingual Students in Texas. IDRA Newsletter.
García, A. (April 6, 2021). HB 2256 Creates More Ways for Teachers to Serve Bilingual and Special Education Students – IDRA Testimony for House Bill 2256 to the House Public Education Committee.
Latham Sikes, C., & Kring Villanueva, C. (2021). Creating a More Bilingual Texas – A Closer Look at Bilingual Education in the Lone Star State. IDRA and Every Texan.
Piñón, L. (June-July 2024). Texas Gets Closer to Adopting a Bilingual Special Education Teacher Certificate. IDRA Newsletter.
Piñón, L. (February 10, 2023Texas’ Forthcoming Bilingual Special Education Certificate Should Require Specific Skills for Teachers of Dually Identified Students – IDRA Testimony for the proposed Bilingual Special Education Educator Standards to the Texas State Board for Educator Certification. IDRA.
Lizdelia Piñón, Ed.D., is an IDRA education associate. Comments and questions may be directed to her at lizdelia.pinon@idra.org
[© 2025, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the September edition of the IDRA Newsletter. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]
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