CPS may owe you $500 if you acted as language interpreter at least three times over the course of the semester. The funds come from downtown and do not pull from your school’s budget. Your principal needs to complete the CPS IEP Interpreter stipend form in order to apply. They received the form on June 13 from Labor Relations. If your principal cannot find the form, they should reach out to LaborRelationsES@cps.edu (elementary schools) or LaborRelationsHS@cps.edu (high schools).
The deadline to submit the request for this past semester is July 1, 2022.
New stipend from 2019 contract
In 2019, we won bilingual education language in our contract for the first time! One of our contract wins includes an IEP interpreter stipend.
Article 44-36 of our contract states:
The Board will provide employees a $500 stipend for each semester that the employee who regularly serves as an interpreter at IEP meetings until such time as the Board establishes an internal certification process. Once the internal certification process is established, any employee who obtains the certification will receive the stipend so long as the employee agrees to interpret at IEP meetings.
Although the contract language mentions certification, CPS has not yet established certification criteria so any CTU member who translates or interprets “regularly” is eligible for the $500 stipend.
Administrators may not know
We know that many of our members are actively and regularly translating at IEP meetings and administrators may not know it. If you have been regularly interpreting at IEP meetings and are eligible for this stipend, approach your principal about this ASAP so that your name can be included on the IEP stipend survey that they have to submit.
The form states that you must have interpreted at least once for at least three students. However, in our conversations with CPS, we have agreed that three times is enough, but there is no agreement that you have to interpret for three different students in order to be considered “interpreting regularly.” So, if you have interpreted three times this past semester, you qualify for the stipend.
No certification needed yet
Additionally, the contract language does mention an internal certification process but CPS has not set that up, so that certification is not required in order to receive the stipend. So again, please have your principal complete the IEP Interpreter Stipend form by July 1, 2022 if you have done this interpreting work.
If you have any questions please reach out to LindaPerales@ctulocal1.org.
