Agenda Item
c. Division of Student Services ~ Translations and Interpretation Services (Not to exceed $1,300,000)
Summary: Presented by: Dr. Norman C. Sauce III, Chief of Student Services, Division of Student Services
Request: It is requested that the Board of Education approve the purchase of professional translation and interpretation services from the following vendors in excess of $100,000.00 with a combined total not to exceed $1,300,000 for the following vendors:
ALTA Language Services
Language Line Services
LATN Language Solutions
Piedmont Global Language Service
Real Time Translation
SeSo, Inc.
Translation Station, Inc.
Zab Translation Solutions
Why: Due to combined spending from all schools and centers serving parents and students whose primary home language is other than English (PHLOTEs), the total cost of translation and interpretation services may exceed $100,000.00 from one or more of the service providers.
Details: The DeKalb County School District, as a local educational agency (LEA) receiving federal grants, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grants, has a legal obligation to maintain meaningful communication with parents and students who may not have English as their primary language. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and IDEA mandate that parental notices and communication must be in a language that the parents or guardians can understand. Services from approved agencies are included in the district’s agreement with the OCR to provide language support services to families and students who speak other languages. Additionally, interpretation services are required during Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings.
The continuous increase in families and students who speak other languages has resulted in a higher demand for translation and interpretation services. Communication with the parents and guardians of these students is crucial for their academic performance. The DeKalb County School District currently serves over 28,306 students whose primary home language is other than English (PHLOTEs). The significant number of languages and dialects, 178, spoken by our community requires the use of several resources to ensure effective communication with all students and parents. Interpretation and translation services to communicate with students and parents are necessary to ensure access to all our services and programs.
According to DJE III(C)(4), multiple vendors are used based on professional ability to provide translation/interpretation services in the requested languages district-wide for all schools.
Financial impact: The Financial Impact to the general funds for the school year 2025-2026 will not exceed the amount of $1,300,000.
Department of English Learners Charge Code:
100.2100 530000.07711.7130.9990.6015.094.0000 ($805.000)
Department of Exceptional Education Charge Code: 100.1000.530000.00011.7340.2021.8010.094.0000($400,000)
100.1000.530000.22711.7320.9990.8010.094.0000($50,000)
Contact: Presented by: Dr. Norman C. Sauce III, Chief of Student Services, Division of Student Services
Dr. Evelyn Hall, Executive Director of English Learners Department, Division of Student Services, 678-676-6603
Mrs. Kiana King, Executive Director, Exceptional Education, Division of Student Services, 678-676-61885
Effective: July 14, 2025- July 13, 2026
Status: Approved by the Office of Legal Affairs
Attachment A: Fee Schedule
#EveryWordMatters
☐ OVER-THE-PHONE (OPI) INTERPRETATION SERVICES
LANGUAGE RATE PER MINUTE
Spanish $0.65
All Other Languages $0.79
• OPI services may be accessed on demand or by scheduling an appointment.
• There is no minimum usage for on demand service; scheduled service incurs a 30-minute
minimum charge. Usage after 30 minutes will be billed at the per minute rate.
• Services scheduled with fewer than 24 hours’ notice will incur a 25% rush fee.
• Scheduled services canceled with fewer than 24 hours’ notice will incur the minimum fee.
☐ VIDEO REMOTE INTERPRETATION (VRI) SERVICES
LANGUAGE RATE PER MINUTE
Spanish $0.99
All Other Spoken Languages $0.99
American Sign Language (ASL) $2.49
• VRI services may be accessed on demand or by scheduling an appointment.
• There is no minimum usage for on demand service; scheduled service incurs a 30-minute
minimum charge. Usage after 30 minutes will be billed at the per minute rate.
• Services scheduled with fewer than 24 hours’ notice will incur a 25% rush fee.
• Scheduled services canceled with fewer than 24 hours’ notice will incur the minimum fee.
☐ ON-SITE INTERPRETATION SERVICES
LANGUAGE RATE PER HOUR
Spanish $70.00
All Other Spoken Languages $95.00
American Sign Language (ASL) $125.00
• On-site requests incur a 2-hour minimum fee; after 2 hours, billing is in 15-minute
increments.
• ASL requests incur a 1-hour travel fee.
• Mileage is charged at the prevailing IRS mileage rate.
• Services scheduled with fewer than 48 hours’ notice will incur a 25% rush fee.
• Depending on the appointment time and duration, a team of 2 interpreters may need to
be assigned. Each interpreter incurs the hourly fee.
• For ASL, scheduled services canceled with fewer than 48 hours’ notice will incur the
minimum 2-hour fee; services for all other languages canceled with fewer than 24 hours’
notice will incur the minimum 2-hour fee.
☐ TRANSLATION AND LOCALIZATION SERVICES
LANGUAGE MACHINE ONE-PASS VERIFIED TRANSLATION
TRANSLATION WITH TRANSLATION
POST EDITING
Spanish $0.08 $0.12 $0.14
Arabic $0.10 $0.12 $0.18
Chinese $0.10 $0.12 $0.18
Russian $0.11 $0.16 $0.22
Ukrainian $0.11 $0.16 $0.22
Vietnamese $0.12 $0.17 $0.22
Portuguese $0.12 $0.17 $0.22
Italian $0.12 $0.17 $0.22
French $0.14 $0.18 $0.22
German $0.14 $0.18 $0.22
Somali N/A N/A $0.22
Korean $0.14 $0.19 $0.24
Japanese $0.14 $0.19 $0.24
Haitian Creole $0.16 $0.19 $0.24
Group 1 Languages N/A $0.19 $0.24
Group 2 Languages N/A $0.21 $0.26
All Other Languages As quoted
RATE PER WORD
• Verified Translation follows ISO 17100:2015 guidelines for translation and revision by
two trained linguists.
• $90 minimum order fee for smaller projects
Group 1 Languages
Belarusian Gujarati Punjabi
Bengali Hebrew Romanian
Bosnian Hindi Serbian
Bulgarian Hungarian Serbo-Croatian
Burmese Indonesian Slovak
Croatian Khmer Slovene
Czech Lao Somali
Danish Latvian Swedish
Dari Lithuanian Tagalog
Dutch Malay Thai
Estonian Montenegrin Turkish
Farsi Nepali Urdu
Finnish Norwegian
Flemish Pashto
Greek Polish
Group 2 Languages
Afrikaans Hausa Tamil
Albanian Hmong Telugu
Amharic Icelandic Tibetan
Armenian Igbo Twi
Azeri Ilokano Uzbek
Bambara Mongolian Wolof
Catalan Samoan Yiddish
Cebuano Sanskrit Yoruba
Fulani Swahili Zulu
Georgian Tajik
☐ ELEARNING LOCALIZATION SERVICES
VOICE OVER RATE
Voice Over min. fee with sync $350.00
Group 1 Languages with sync $40 per minute
Voice Over min. fee without sync $300.00
Group 1 Languages without sync $37 per minute
All Other Spoken Languages [Group 2] $65 per minute
Synthetic Voice Over min. fee with QA $180.00
Synthetic Voice Over with QA $21 per minute
ELEARNING DEVELOPMENT RATE
eLearning Development $65 per hour
Linguistic QA at 2x the runtime $75 per hour
Desktop publishing [text extraction, OCR] $65 per hour
MULTIMEDIA SERVICES RATE
Script Prep/ Timecoding min. fee $60.00
Script Prep/ Timecoding per minute. $7.50 per minute
Transcription for large/complex texts $12.00
Burn-In and Final Export $9.00 per minute
OST Localization All additional translation and
Audio Editing/Mixing/resyncing localization services are quoted per
project.
☐ ADDITIONAL SERVICES SPECIFY ALL THAT APPLY:
________________________________________________
SERVICE RATE
Desktop Publishing $65.00 per hour
Certificate of Accuracy $10 per certificate
Localization
Voiceover recording
Subtitling
All additional translation and localization services are
Transcription
quoted per project.
Glossary Development
Translation Memory Management
Other Related Services
TRANSLATION MEMORY DISCOUNTS
MATCH DISCOUNT
100% & REPETITION 50%
95% - 99% 45%
85% - 94% 35%
STANDARD TURNAROUND TIMES
NUMBER OF WORDS PER DOCUMENT TURNAROUND TIME
1-2,500 WORDS 1-2 days
2,501-6,000 Words 3-4 days
6,001-10,000 Words 5-6 days
10,001-20,000 Words 6-10 days
20,001+ Words 10+ days
• Projects requiring faster than standard delivery may incur a 25% rush fee.