Update on ESSE Loophole Legislation

In 2013, the Washington Legislature passed an education interpreter standard requiring a minimum level of competency for all sign language interpreters employed by school districts in Washington state. The responsibility for deciding which standard was used went to the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB). The PESB formed a workgroup, and after researching and discussing all available options, they voted to use the EIPA or RID national certification as the standard.

At the time, a small group of SEE educators were unhappy with the decision to use the EIPA because they believed the standard should include the ESSE exam (administered by the SEE Center) for SEE interpreters. The problem is the ESSE test has no validity or reliability data and SEE is already included in the EIPA.

Despite the PESB decision not to include an ESSE loophole, the SEE educators went ahead and found a legislative sponsor to amend the current standard in the 2016 legislative session. Members of the Deaf community and interpreter community came together to successfully fight this legislation, and that bill did not make it out of committee.

In the fall of 2016, WSRID was alerted that the SEE educators had found a new legislative sponsor and were looking to reintroduce the ESSE loophole bill in the 2017 session. WSRID participated in a conference call on November 16, 2016, with SEE educators from various states, the two representatives potentially sponsoring the bill, and David Brenna from the PESB. The representatives were concerned that there may be deaf students in Washington who may not have access to interpreters because the EIPA was insufficient for evaluating SEE.

WSRID has become a little frustrated with having to argue the same issue three years in a row, but explained to the representatives that the EIPA does adequately evaluate SEE and there is still no reliability or validity data to support the use of the ESSE in our state standard. WSRID also invited the representatives to meet with the opposition to this legislation to hear why it is so important to not let unqualified interpreters continue to working in our state.

WSRID's impression from the conference call was that the representatives were shocked and embarrassed after hearing the opposition to this bill to amend our standard. Since that time, the draft bill that was promised has not been released, and WSRID has not heard from either representative about any plans to move it forward. It is still very possible this bill could be reintroduced in January, but it is unlikely to be successful considering the PESB and legislators have asked for data that has yet to be produced.

Here is a copy of the brief WSRID sent to representatives outlining the issues.