Title VI: meaningful access for LEP families.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The Supreme Court interpreted it in Lau v. Nichols (1974) to require schools to take affirmative steps to ensure language barriers don't exclude LEP students from meaningful participation. The OCR/DOJ 2015 Dear Colleague guidance spelled out the operational duties: identify EL students, provide adequate language assistance programs, communicate essential information with LEP parents in a language they can understand, and use trained interpreters and translators.

• Registration and enrollment forms; language-assistance program notices
• Parent handbooks; report cards; gifted-and-talented program information
• Special-education and IEP-related communications
• Student-discipline policies and procedures
• Parent-teacher conference notices
• Grievance procedures and notices of nondiscrimination
• Requests for parental permission
• Promotional notices about school activities

The 2015 guidance was explicit: schools must use trained interpreters and translators — not children, untrained bilingual staff, or family members. That means people with training, ethics commitments, and competence in specialized terminology where the context requires it (medical, legal, educational).