In today’s increasingly diverse classrooms, special education teachers need to be prepared to support students with disabilities while also addressing the linguistic and cultural needs of multilingual learners (MLs). This dual responsibility presents a complex challenge that is often overlooked in traditional special education training programs. With support from a grant provided by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), our team successfully redesigned and enhanced our institution's pre-service special education curriculum.

Our approach focused on including essential knowledge and skills:
(a) second language acquisition and development;
(b) language variation and disability;
(c) culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy; and
(d) collaborative and family-centered practices.

We made specific updates to four courses. A total of 817 pre-service special education teachers completed the revised classes over the course of eight semesters. We will share the study results, along with its limitations. The process of redesigning our pre-service special education curriculum to better serve MLs offered valuable insights—not only about curriculum development but also about institutional change, faculty collaboration, and the changing needs of today’s classrooms. Several key lessons emerged from our experience and will be discussed during the presentation.

Keywords: Pre-service teachers, special education, multilingual learners.