Deaf School

1.     Benefit 300+ students? Really? Did you even watch the video or read the article?  Tara showed how the requirement for LSL specialists + auditory-only environment narrowed down the number of schools to two. Maybe there are three private and two public A/O schools in the state, but where are the certified LSL specialists? Hmm. I notice you haven’t offered SPECIFIC information about those schools and how or whether they meet the qualifications.

2.     FSDB serves more than 600 students on that $45 million. Not 399. It serves the full gamut of needs for a huge variety of kids. K-12, single disability (deaf or blind), multiple disabilities (deaf-blind, learning disabilities, psychiatric conditions, CP, mental retardation, physical disabilities, etc.), students from all over the state whose families don’t have access to good deaf and/or blind ed in their hometowns. Can private schools accommodate a student from a family from way out in the middle of nowhere who can’t afford to move to near the school? No. So a big chunk of that money for FSDB goes to dorms for those kids who have to live away from their families because their home schools can’t serve them. And then there’s all sorts of specialists to meet all sorts of needs – like Tara said. FSDB offers everything, including speech and auditory therapy. And they have to have counselors and therapists and etc. on staff. That’s gonna be way more expensive than offering only ONE mode and not employing any specialists in anything other than AVT and LSL.

3.     There’s a reason FSDB students often don’t enter the mainstream. They came FROM the mainstream! Some of them even came from A/O programs! State schools for the deaf are the last resort after kids can’t hack it at A/O schools or in public schools. How fair is it to judge a school that’s the dumping ground for kids that started out in A/O or public schools. When those schools can’t meet those kids’ needs, they get pushed out and into FSDB through no fault of their own or FSDB’s. And yet FSDB gets beat up for it and people yell about how expensive it is? Duh. Cleanup and damage control is expensive.

IMHO, people who spout off about choice but then tell parents the only responsible choice is AO and then back it up with questionable (or even unsourced) “research” showing ASL is oh so terrible and will gasp HURT your child!! have no place trying to stick their hands in taxpayer pockets to support something that offers absolutely no choices for parents and nothing nearly resembling a range of options as a safety net if their students don’t take 100% to the AO method. These kids just go without full language access for however long, and then they get kicked out … ahem .. “encouraged” to transfer to a program more “appropriate” to their needs.

And don’t tell me that never happens. There are posts all over the internet by those products of the system – whether still kids or now adults. As much as AG Bell and AO programs would love to pretend they don’t exist.

AO supporters go on and on and on about how ASL isn’t the only option. Um. FSDB and public schools offer ALL options, including AVT. And they have GOOD therapists and specialists too. AO private schools offer only one option and tell people that options can’t be combined. Did the dictionary change the definition of options when I wasn’t looking?

And you go on about the “ASL community” … FYI, the deaf community isn’t just ASL users, and not all ASL users use ONLY ASL. Far from it. The deaf community is way more complex than that and tons of deaf people use multiple modes … oh, wait, excuse me … OPTIONS. They sign. Many started out or grew up oral. They learned ASL later. Does that mean they're now disowned by AO even tho they still "listen" and talk with hearing people even as they use sign language to socialize with other deaf people? Good to know you lump all signers together regardless of speaking ability.  They wear CIs or hearing aids.  They talk. They lipread. They’re truly bilingual and multimodal. Get with the times and reality. It’s not two separate camps, as much as your own fantasy fairy tale might like to argue.

BTW, aren’t you hearing? You sure sound like it. Hearing people have no business telling others how to manage their deafness when they don’t even understand what it’s like to grow up or be deaf themselves. Try it first, honestly.  And just so you know, I come from an AO background and have been mainstreamed my whole life and am what you people like to call a “success story”.  I’m also fluent in ASL and have a CI. What you got to say now?  Don’t preach it until you’ve LIVED it.