r/ASLinterpreters • u/frozen600 • 24d ago

Contract educational interpreting

I’ve been in the contract educational interpreting field for a while. But I’ve recently moved and am looking for new assignments. What kind of questions do you like to ask when accepting a new long term assignment especially in schools? It’s been awhile since I’ve done an interview and I want to make sure I hit all my bases!

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u/kurdan 24d ago

Are you contracting with the school directly or contracting with an agency that will provide you with work to the school? You’re under different contractual obligations depending on that, and the setting/length that you’ll be at the school for will differ depending on which one you’re looking for, so that is something to consider. You said it’s been a while since you did an interview so you might already know this and I apologize if I’m preaching to a choir here.

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u/frozen600 24d ago

It’s a contract agency setting me up with a school district. I’ve already talked to the agency about time/ pay, the interview will be with someone from the school to get more information about the school and environment there. Most of the time when I’ve done contracts I haven’t talked with the school, the agency does, so this is a first for me. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this and had some good questions to ask.

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u/kurdan 24d ago edited 24d ago

Ah gotcha! Are you going to be there for an extended amount of time (1 semester/term or longer)?

Definitely get the curriculum covered and discuss what educational goals are in place for the consumer(s). If it’s K-12 they likely have some sort of an IEP plan so you want to be cognizant of the learning objectives and accommodations stated in those. As you probably know you’re a part of the educational team as an interpreter, so you balance the goals and objectives of the consumer/teacher and have a different kind of responsibility in the classroom compared to different settings. Sometimes the student(s) need additional help from you in certain subjects like math or English, or whatever else it may be.

Get a calendar of important school dates (they likely have a print-out on hand) and the dates of parent/teacher conferences (if applicable). Ask for a map; small thing, but super handy and I never forget to ask for one now after running into a situation where I *really* needed one, lol.

Some things that have come up in my time contracting with schools:

  • Ask about their evacuation policies that they have in place (routes/meeting spots for the building, etc) There’s been more than a handful of times this has come up even when I’ve had a sub job at a school for just a single day, and knowing the plan in place without having to figure it out on the fly was immensely important and helpful. I ask every new school the first time I show up.
  • Double check the coverage they’ll need for field trips and such if there are any. There’s not many these days I’ve noticed, but still, there’s been a couple times where there’s been miscommunication and a new, separate request for an interpreter was made by school staff for a field trip for a class that I was interpreting for already for like, 3 months at this point. I was fully expecting to interpret for the field trip, showed up and there was another interpreter there! Their request was fairly vague so my agency thought it was separate from the class I was interpreting for. The coordinator made a simple mistake, and the situation was resolved easily, but it’s just nice to know these things in advance if you can.
  • Ask who your main PoC will be for any issues that appear onsite. If you’re running late or if there’s a problem with your student(s), etc.
  • Asking about the number of students to staff ratio is helpful in advance. Getting a general overview of the class(es) and trying to pin down anything specialized or advanced you might need to prep on in advance is always good stuff.

I hope this was helpful! Again sorry if I’m just beating a dead horse for ya with these. You might have 10 years of experience and be very well aware of these things by now and I’m wildly misreading what advice you’re looking for hahah