Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,164
- Reaction score
- 5
‘Fractured’ Deaf school faces its troubles | Education | projo.com | The Providence Journal
Five middle school students sit in a semicircle around their English teacher and discuss a short story one recent morning.
Their hands move swiftly as they talk, comparing the characteristics of honey bees and yellow jackets. Their voices at times are blurred, indistinct. Yet the discussion is lively, the students laughing and interrupting each other.
Their teacher, Dana Janik, reminds them to focus their eyes on whoever is talking, so as to not miss their comments.
Janik, a teacher at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, interrupts one of her students who gestures as though she is pulling on a sweater or coat.
“I wouldn’t sign ‘jacket,’ Sarah, because, really, the yellow jacket is a bee,” Janik says as she simultaneously signs the symbol for bee.
Later in the lesson, a student stumbles over the word “pollinate.”
“There is no sign for that, so you have to spell it,” Janik says, as she forms each letter with her hands.
The lesson underscores the hurdles that deaf students face. Learning to read and write, as some teachers say, is rocket science. For deaf children, acquiring language skills is exponentially harder.
Many students arrive without a solid language base or the advantages of hearing children, who pick up incidental language skills through television, music and radio. In some cases, the families of deaf children have difficulty learning sign language and cannot effectively communicate with their children at home. Teachers often have to move between two forms of sign language to suit the needs of their students: American Sign Language, which relies on symbols, and Signed English, which more closely follows English words and grammar. And many of the children at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf also have significant learning, behavioral or physical disabilities that must be addressed.
At the same time, just as the state’s other 313 public schools, the School for the Deaf must comply with tougher federal and state regulations, including yearly testing, new grade-level expectations and more rigorous high school graduation requirements.
The school is confronting the challenges shared by schools struggling to successfully educate all students regardless of learning disabilities at the same time the state is raising its academic standards, says David V. Abbott, deputy education commissioner.
“These problems are everywhere,” Abbott said. “They are just much more concentrated and intensified at the School for the Deaf.”
So, education officials say, it is not surprising that the 132-year-old school — which is plagued by numerous other problems ranging from a deteriorating building to a recent history of unstable leadership — is struggling to meet the diverse needs of its students. But educators are trying to change that, prompted in part by a 34-page report presented to the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education last month.
The report outlined many of the school’s problems, including examples of inadequate classroom instruction — particularly in the critical area of literacy — and a breakdown of trust and communication throughout the school.
THE RHODE ISLAND School for the Deaf was established in 1876 as the Providence Day School for the Deaf, changing its name in 1880. Today, it serves 83 students, ages 3 to 21, from communities throughout the state, in addition to a handful of tuition-paying students from Massachusetts. Because of the students’ special needs, costs run high, roughly $65,000 per pupil.
About 70 percent of the school’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch because of low family income. A growing number of students come from homes that speak a language other than English, compounding communication difficulties.
The school’s current building, in Providence’s Corliss Park, is 60 years old and ill-equipped for deaf education, school officials say. In 2006, the General Assembly approved a $31-million bond to build a new school, which is scheduled to be built across the parking lot from the current school.
In recent years, the school has experienced leadership upheaval.
Since 2001, the school has had four directors and three chairmen on the board of trustees that governs the state-financed school. Earlier this year, the board’s chairman left after a no-confidence vote by the teachers union. The faculty held another no-confidence vote last month, this one against the current director, Lori Dunsmore, who took over in fall 2007.
The latest round of the school’s standardized test scores was dismal. Just 35 percent of third through eighth graders scored proficient in reading, compared with an average of 65 percent statewide. Just 41 percent scored proficient in math, compared with 54 percent statewide. The school also failed to show it had aligned its courses to the state’s more rigorous high school graduation requirements, and did not receive preliminary approval of its diploma system from the state Department of Education.
To address the escalating problems, education Commissioner Peter McWalters assembled a team of seven educators from Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont to visit the school for two days last May.
What the team found was a “fractured” community, their October report said.
“A stifling and contentious culture exists at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf,” the report says. “Teachers’ fear and anxiety of accepting new ideas and change, as well as a major disparity in beliefs about communication [oral vs. sign] both contribute to this. The negativity … [has] contributed to the lack of acceptance of the new director’s attempts to establish change.”
The report specifically criticized the way reading, literacy skills and critical thinking are integrated in the classroom. The report cited inconsistent use of technology, such as Smart Boards and visual aids, to help deaf students learn; insufficient collaboration among teachers; and confusing instruction among some teachers because of a weak background in American Sign Language.
“This report created a lot of evidence that the level of rigor is not where it needs to be for the students if this school is going to be successful in preparing students for college, job settings and as adults in the world,” said Rick Richards, a member of the team that visited the school and a school improvement specialist for the state.
At the same time, the report describes a school where teachers care deeply about their students and provide a safe learning environment. Deaf schools must strike a careful balance between supporting students and challenging them, said Edward Peltier, a member of the visiting team and executive director of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, the nation’s first deaf school.
“There needs to be the nurturing component because many students in schools for the deaf have not experienced academic success,” he said. “I think the teachers want the kids to feel good about themselves so they can gradually build rigor.”
But he added: “I pretty much saw good teaching across the board. I saw people on task, with good knowledge of their students, engaged in challenging activities.”
LORI DUNSMORE, director of the school since last year, says she is working on a plan to move the school forward.
This fall, she hired an assistant director, Mary Smith, to oversee curriculum and work closely with teachers. The teachers union president, Dinaz Adenwalla, said teachers have developed a good rapport with Smith. However, relations between teachers and Dunsmore continue to be strained.
Some teachers said recently that Dunsmore’s communication with teachers is poor and that she has excluded them from plans to improve the school.
“She doesn’t look to us for our input, based on our experience,” said Adenwalla. “We have ideas about the program needs for the school, but she doesn’t listen to our feedback.”
Dunsmore, the school’s second deaf director, said the cultural and academic changes she is trying to make are difficult, but declined to criticize the faculty.
“There are good teachers here,” Dunsmore said. “They just need guidance, and leadership changes are difficult for everyone to deal with.”
Adenwalla says a major challenge is finding ways to involve parents in their children’s education. Some students come from families that cannot adequately communicate with them, so teachers must try to fill in those gaps during the seven-hour school day, Adenwalla said.
Some teachers also criticize the state’s new regulations and yearly tests, saying they are unfair to deaf students, many of whom do not perform at grade level. In addition, the tests are biased against deaf students, including questions dealing with music, for example.
Peltier says such concerns are common at deaf schools. “You don’t want to water [standards] down, because you want to have high expectations and there are some kids who can do it,” he said. “At the same time, [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] says each child is an individual and some kids do need adaptations. The challenge is finding the mix between having high expectations and being practical.”
THE RHODE ISLAND School for the Deaf faces an uphill battle.
Eleven teachers were lost over the summer, either through retirements or layoffs, and most will not be replaced. Teachers say the school needs a special-education coordinator and a reading specialist and are dismayed that the school’s visual arts program was eliminated this year.
But administrators are bracing for even deeper cuts. The state-operated school must trim its budget by about $900,000 next year, according to preliminary budget proposals.
Two committees are being established to oversee improvement of the school — one focused on solving the school’s immediate problems, the other focused on developing a long-term vision for the school and increasing enrollment. Administrators and teachers point to the planned September 2010 opening as a fresh start for the school.
Bruce Bucci, a former student and now a social studies teacher at the deaf school, acknowledges the problems the school is facing, but says he hopes they don’t overshadow the positive work going on there.
“The school itself is a great place for our deaf and hard-of- hearing children,” Bucci said. “We always encourage our students to reach their full potential, and I think we do a good job at that.”
Five middle school students sit in a semicircle around their English teacher and discuss a short story one recent morning.
Their hands move swiftly as they talk, comparing the characteristics of honey bees and yellow jackets. Their voices at times are blurred, indistinct. Yet the discussion is lively, the students laughing and interrupting each other.
Their teacher, Dana Janik, reminds them to focus their eyes on whoever is talking, so as to not miss their comments.
Janik, a teacher at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, interrupts one of her students who gestures as though she is pulling on a sweater or coat.
“I wouldn’t sign ‘jacket,’ Sarah, because, really, the yellow jacket is a bee,” Janik says as she simultaneously signs the symbol for bee.
Later in the lesson, a student stumbles over the word “pollinate.”
“There is no sign for that, so you have to spell it,” Janik says, as she forms each letter with her hands.
The lesson underscores the hurdles that deaf students face. Learning to read and write, as some teachers say, is rocket science. For deaf children, acquiring language skills is exponentially harder.
Many students arrive without a solid language base or the advantages of hearing children, who pick up incidental language skills through television, music and radio. In some cases, the families of deaf children have difficulty learning sign language and cannot effectively communicate with their children at home. Teachers often have to move between two forms of sign language to suit the needs of their students: American Sign Language, which relies on symbols, and Signed English, which more closely follows English words and grammar. And many of the children at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf also have significant learning, behavioral or physical disabilities that must be addressed.
At the same time, just as the state’s other 313 public schools, the School for the Deaf must comply with tougher federal and state regulations, including yearly testing, new grade-level expectations and more rigorous high school graduation requirements.
The school is confronting the challenges shared by schools struggling to successfully educate all students regardless of learning disabilities at the same time the state is raising its academic standards, says David V. Abbott, deputy education commissioner.
“These problems are everywhere,” Abbott said. “They are just much more concentrated and intensified at the School for the Deaf.”
So, education officials say, it is not surprising that the 132-year-old school — which is plagued by numerous other problems ranging from a deteriorating building to a recent history of unstable leadership — is struggling to meet the diverse needs of its students. But educators are trying to change that, prompted in part by a 34-page report presented to the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education last month.
The report outlined many of the school’s problems, including examples of inadequate classroom instruction — particularly in the critical area of literacy — and a breakdown of trust and communication throughout the school.
THE RHODE ISLAND School for the Deaf was established in 1876 as the Providence Day School for the Deaf, changing its name in 1880. Today, it serves 83 students, ages 3 to 21, from communities throughout the state, in addition to a handful of tuition-paying students from Massachusetts. Because of the students’ special needs, costs run high, roughly $65,000 per pupil.
About 70 percent of the school’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch because of low family income. A growing number of students come from homes that speak a language other than English, compounding communication difficulties.
The school’s current building, in Providence’s Corliss Park, is 60 years old and ill-equipped for deaf education, school officials say. In 2006, the General Assembly approved a $31-million bond to build a new school, which is scheduled to be built across the parking lot from the current school.
In recent years, the school has experienced leadership upheaval.
Since 2001, the school has had four directors and three chairmen on the board of trustees that governs the state-financed school. Earlier this year, the board’s chairman left after a no-confidence vote by the teachers union. The faculty held another no-confidence vote last month, this one against the current director, Lori Dunsmore, who took over in fall 2007.
The latest round of the school’s standardized test scores was dismal. Just 35 percent of third through eighth graders scored proficient in reading, compared with an average of 65 percent statewide. Just 41 percent scored proficient in math, compared with 54 percent statewide. The school also failed to show it had aligned its courses to the state’s more rigorous high school graduation requirements, and did not receive preliminary approval of its diploma system from the state Department of Education.
To address the escalating problems, education Commissioner Peter McWalters assembled a team of seven educators from Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont to visit the school for two days last May.
What the team found was a “fractured” community, their October report said.
“A stifling and contentious culture exists at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf,” the report says. “Teachers’ fear and anxiety of accepting new ideas and change, as well as a major disparity in beliefs about communication [oral vs. sign] both contribute to this. The negativity … [has] contributed to the lack of acceptance of the new director’s attempts to establish change.”
The report specifically criticized the way reading, literacy skills and critical thinking are integrated in the classroom. The report cited inconsistent use of technology, such as Smart Boards and visual aids, to help deaf students learn; insufficient collaboration among teachers; and confusing instruction among some teachers because of a weak background in American Sign Language.
“This report created a lot of evidence that the level of rigor is not where it needs to be for the students if this school is going to be successful in preparing students for college, job settings and as adults in the world,” said Rick Richards, a member of the team that visited the school and a school improvement specialist for the state.
At the same time, the report describes a school where teachers care deeply about their students and provide a safe learning environment. Deaf schools must strike a careful balance between supporting students and challenging them, said Edward Peltier, a member of the visiting team and executive director of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, the nation’s first deaf school.
“There needs to be the nurturing component because many students in schools for the deaf have not experienced academic success,” he said. “I think the teachers want the kids to feel good about themselves so they can gradually build rigor.”
But he added: “I pretty much saw good teaching across the board. I saw people on task, with good knowledge of their students, engaged in challenging activities.”
LORI DUNSMORE, director of the school since last year, says she is working on a plan to move the school forward.
This fall, she hired an assistant director, Mary Smith, to oversee curriculum and work closely with teachers. The teachers union president, Dinaz Adenwalla, said teachers have developed a good rapport with Smith. However, relations between teachers and Dunsmore continue to be strained.
Some teachers said recently that Dunsmore’s communication with teachers is poor and that she has excluded them from plans to improve the school.
“She doesn’t look to us for our input, based on our experience,” said Adenwalla. “We have ideas about the program needs for the school, but she doesn’t listen to our feedback.”
Dunsmore, the school’s second deaf director, said the cultural and academic changes she is trying to make are difficult, but declined to criticize the faculty.
“There are good teachers here,” Dunsmore said. “They just need guidance, and leadership changes are difficult for everyone to deal with.”
Adenwalla says a major challenge is finding ways to involve parents in their children’s education. Some students come from families that cannot adequately communicate with them, so teachers must try to fill in those gaps during the seven-hour school day, Adenwalla said.
Some teachers also criticize the state’s new regulations and yearly tests, saying they are unfair to deaf students, many of whom do not perform at grade level. In addition, the tests are biased against deaf students, including questions dealing with music, for example.
Peltier says such concerns are common at deaf schools. “You don’t want to water [standards] down, because you want to have high expectations and there are some kids who can do it,” he said. “At the same time, [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] says each child is an individual and some kids do need adaptations. The challenge is finding the mix between having high expectations and being practical.”
THE RHODE ISLAND School for the Deaf faces an uphill battle.
Eleven teachers were lost over the summer, either through retirements or layoffs, and most will not be replaced. Teachers say the school needs a special-education coordinator and a reading specialist and are dismayed that the school’s visual arts program was eliminated this year.
But administrators are bracing for even deeper cuts. The state-operated school must trim its budget by about $900,000 next year, according to preliminary budget proposals.
Two committees are being established to oversee improvement of the school — one focused on solving the school’s immediate problems, the other focused on developing a long-term vision for the school and increasing enrollment. Administrators and teachers point to the planned September 2010 opening as a fresh start for the school.
Bruce Bucci, a former student and now a social studies teacher at the deaf school, acknowledges the problems the school is facing, but says he hopes they don’t overshadow the positive work going on there.
“The school itself is a great place for our deaf and hard-of- hearing children,” Bucci said. “We always encourage our students to reach their full potential, and I think we do a good job at that.”