Catherwood LibraryILR School

At a childcare facility in Arlington County, a recent decision by supervisors forbidding bilingual aides from speaking Spanish to parents or each other unless a supervisor and a translator are present has infuriated both the aides---some of whom have been fired or disciplined in other manners due to their continued use of Spanish, and the parents who rely on the aides as a means of communicating with the school. School officials have defended their actions on the grounds that several employees sent a letter to their supervisor last summer complaining that certain staff members had been speaking to students in an inappropriate manner. The conflict brings up a complex area of Equal Employment Opportunity law in which it has been held that English-only regulations are illegal absent proof of the necessity of such a regulation---with what constitutes "necessity" being a very grey area.