Originally Posted by Interpretrator

In my area there are a lot of deaf people teaching ASL. Some of them teach in the high schools and some teach at community colleges that serve both high school and college students. So at least in terms of deaf studies it's not universally seen as a problem to hire a deaf teacher.

Outside of that, though...I don't know if it's for that reason or because of the others mentioned in this thread but I agree it's still rare and unusual to see deaf people teaching non-deaf-related subjects in mainstream classrooms. With solid interpreting I don't see that it has to be a problem; back before I knew too much sign language I was a service provider in a classroom taught by a deaf teacher with voice interpretation and I didn't notice either hearing or deaf students having any problem with comprehension. This was a deaf studies classroom, granted, but there's no reason why it can't work in a mainstream classroom, logistically.

Of course it's rarely logistics that are the problem; it's the politics.