Kimberly Quijada
Kimberly Quijada is a fourth-year completing her degree in English & Chicanx Studies with a minor in Disability Studies. Her experiences working at a special education rights clinic led her to an interest in research within the special education system. Her research project centers around Individualized Education Plan meetings and investigates how parents navigate these spaces. She has noticed that many of these parents have inadequate experiences with their IEP team. This leads to inadequate IEPs that do not offer sufficient goals, evaluations, and services to disabled children. There has been limited research done on the experiences of non-English speaking families with the IEP process and parental advocacy. It is imperative that this research exists to understand the ways parents experience discrimination and ensure parents have the resources to navigate IEP meetings and that disabled BIPOC students are not underserved or isolated in their fight for a free and appropr\iate public education.