With more than 80 languages spoken throughout Dallas ISD every day, the need for clear communication manifests in many forms.
Sometimes it’s a young child struggling to explain symptoms to a nurse, a middle schooler who wants to see their school counselor, or a parent navigating a language barrier during a parent-teacher conference.
For almost 20 years, Dallas ISD’s Translation Services’ mission is to reach families and students in their preferred language, housing the largest translation and interpretation team in Texas. Composed of 26 team members, they support a total of 10 languages.
Through daily hotline calls and direct campus support such as club meetings, parent-teacher conferences, or board meetings, team members interpret conversations and written documents, translating complex ideas, high-stakes conversations, medical advice, or sometimes, directions to school.
After receiving 7,000 various language requests during the 2024-2025 school year, the department handled 8,000 requests in 2025-2026, with staff fulfilling roughly 6,000 through in-person meeting coverage.
“We’re bridging a communication gap by helping parents participate in their child’s education,” said Alejandra Granell, coordinator for Translation Services. “The minute an interpreter gets a call, they take care of it right away. Many times, we can nip an issue in the bud and serve as the connection between school and home. That’s been our purpose since we first started.”
Beyond campuses, the department supports departments that directly impact student achievement, including Family and Community Engagement, Board Services, Counseling Services, P-TECH programs, and Truancy.
Another essential benefit of professional translation services is providing a neutral, objective voice that helps build trust with families and school staff who may need to navigate delicate or complex conversations.
To serve a diverse community, interpreters are consistently learning on the job by adding new words to their vernacular, relating to the community on a deeper level.
They explore emerging tools such as artificial intelligence, which Granell emphasizes can be a powerful tool, but one that struggles to grasp cultural context, nuanced phrasing, or regional accents; all factors that can easily lead to misinterpretation, especially during sensitive or high-stakes conversations.
Spanish remains the most requested language, reflecting about 68,000 students whose families primarily speak Spanish at home. Other frequently spoken languages include Pashto, American Sign Language, Rohingya and Swahili. Last year, the department provided interpretation services to more than 20,000 parents and translated over one million words.
According to the district’s annual home language survey, both parents and campus administrators consistently report that school operations and family engagement would not be possible without the department’s daily support.
“There’s a wide variety of people that we’re communicating with and our job is to make each person feel welcome in school,” Granell said.
Families seeking interpretation services can contact their campus directly to request language support. For more information, click here.
The languages spoken by Dallas ISD’s Translation Services team include:
- ASL
- Burmese
- Dari
- French
- Italian
- Kirundi
- Pashto
- Rohingya
- Spanish
- Swahili
