IEP translation is often costly and time consuming – challenging schools’ and districts’ abilities to meet family language access needs within budget and in time for IEP meetings. While many platforms and tools offer built-in automated translation options, these lack the quality and assurance of accuracy special educators need.
Alboum has taken our experience in special education translation and paired it with our trained systems and very human linguists to speed the translation process and bring down costs where we can, while still maintaining both quality and student privacy.
Available today for Spanish and Arabic, Alboum is excited to announce our new IEP Translation Solution.
How Alboum’s IEP Translation Solution Works
Alboum has built English-Spanish and English-Arabic Special Education Glossaries with more than 200 unique terms that are available to all Alboum clients to support their translations (not just IEPs!).
We first apply these terms to your IEPs to identify the new and unique content for each student. We also compare the language in each new IEP to any translations we have on file from previous non-student-specific projects completed for your district. (IEP translations are not stored or used as a resource for future translations.)
Then, we apply our machine translation with post-editing (MTPE) approach to speed the translation process.
This means that we leverage our FERPA-compliant translation engine (like Google Translate only fully secure and trained for our clients’ needs) to do an initial translation of the unique content in each IEP.
Then, one of our qualified linguists who is familiar with the special education process and documents reviews and revises the output to ensure accuracy, comprehensiveness, grammar, and cultural appropriateness of the translation.
Benefits:
- Reduces cost of and time required for translation by approximately 25% as compared to stand-alone machine translation with post-editing. (MTPE already brings both down by around 30% from full-human translation.)
- Good quality translations
- Greater consistency in word choice across translated IEPs and any widely-distributed special education documentation
Frequently Asked Questions
What if my district has terminology it prefers?
No problem! There are many ways to translate the same words and phrases. Your district’s preferred terminology always takes priority. We are happy to review any terms where our recommendation may differ together as well.
Is this FERPA compliant?
Alboum’s IEP Translation Solution is 100% FERPA compliant. No student data was used to create the glossary nor is any student data stored in Alboum’s systems. All personally identifiable information (PII) is deleted from our systems within 30 days of delivery of the translation.
What languages is this available for?
Alboum’s IEP Translation Solution is currently available for English > Spanish and English > Arabic translation. Additional languages will be coming soon and prioritized based on district needs. The machine translation with post editing approach can be applied for dozens of languages independent of the glossary.
How much does it cost?
Like all translations, cost depends on the word count in each document and time required to adjust the layout of the translated content. Alboum’s design team ensures there are no words running off a page and all text is in the section where it belongs after the translation process is complete. There is no charge to leverage Alboum’s Special Education glossary. Your account manager will review each IEP and provide you with a word count for both unique and repeated content. As always, Alboum only charges for the work actually completed. There are no hidden fees.
What about interpretation for the meeting?
Alboum provides virtual interpretation for thousands of IEP and ARD meetings every school year. The service is available both on-demand via phone or video and also scheduled in advance so an interpreter can join a Teams, Zoom or Google Meet meeting.
Beyond legal compliance, providing interpreters for IEP meetings helps schools build relationships with families – providing parents with confidence in the school’s commitment to their child and empowering them to actively participate in the educational process for their child.
Learn more about Alboum’s interpretation services for schools and districts.
