Failing Spanish Speaker?

Yesterday I did a lot of observations, I finally have a case study student that I will be targeting for our special education lab. The student is a very low reader and is not receiving any services at the moment. Mrs. K says that she doesnt have a lot of motivation, but Mrs. K said that could have resulted from not being successful in school for so many years. Its a chicken and the egg type of situation.
In third hour, there is one student in particular I would like to focus my attention on. This student, we'll call him Mike, understands a lot of Spanish, we arent sure if he is native and just pretends to not know, or if he is not native. Mrs. K says that his parents and grandparents both are native speakers, and Mike understands them, but is literally failing the class. He sleeps a lot and doesnt turn in any work. Mrs. K has tried to ask him what's been up several times but to no avail. She is disheartened, she doesnt treat any of her students differently based on their grades/performance in class, which is something most teachers never succeed at. Although she doesnt have a bad attitude with him because of his grade, she doesnt give him extra attention either. I'm not sure what the problem is here. Mrs. K says that his other grades are good in some classes and failing grades in others. She said that it seems as if he picks which classes to do well in.
From my interaction with him, he is a bright, intelligent boy, but something deeper is going on. I still am not sure what it is, but I plan on focusing more attention on this issue.