carebear_ch

ok i am a parent to a deaf child and i am part of a support group for parents. we are in the galveston and brazoria counties in south texas. i was wanting to see what you guys all thought about something. currently our children are attending 4 schools in 3 school districts. this means they are being bused very long distances just for schooling. these children dont get time to make friends and to keep friends as they are forced to move from one place to another. the districts they attend are at least 30 -45 minutes in a car from each other. the kids and all us parents are wanting them all in one school district that has schools that feed into each other. the inter school they are attending now has a high school approx. 50 yards from it and they are not allowed to go there with the friends they have made.we have gone to the school boards and plead witht hem to change it and they dont want to. we tried saying that with gas prices being what they are it would save so much money( and it really will,we figured it out as best we could) and they dont care. now they are wanting to do a 4 cent tax increase.... hmm i dont understand why when they have a way to save a lot of money every year. anyways my question to you is how would you handle this and who would you contact? we have hit a stump and cant get over it.we have bene told we can get an attorney and file a class action lawsuit on them and we have also been told we can just get an advocate to help us. does anyone know what we are able to do? does anyone know of someone that could help us in this? any ideas,questions or suggestions welcome. please email me at herrc1975@hotmail.com or leave comments on here. i have a lot more info if you are interested in it. we did start an online petition at this link http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/698076146 please feel free to read it over and sign it if you support. it tells a little more on there about our situation. if you can please pass the link onto any other people you might know as we are needing as much support on this that we can get. we truely appreciate any advice and info you guys have also. thank you so much.

Deafness

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NEWIDME

Signed and added to favorites to spread to my email cohorts and workers.

carebear_ch

thank you so much for your support in this. we truely appreciate all you have done.

VamPyroX

Could you explain more about this situation?

From what I'm reading, it sounds like the kids are going to more than one school each day. Is that for one grade level or multiple grade levels.

Some school districts find it easier to group deaf kids instead of spread out depending on their budget. I went through the same thing when I was a kid. I rode the "special" bus to school every morning. My bus ride was 30 minutes to 1 hour long every morning and every evening. That's because the buses had to drive all over town to pick up all the deaf kids. The reason for this was because they couldn't afford to have interpreters at every school that the kids decided to go to. So, they made it easier by having all the interpreters at the same school.

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carebear_ch

They are spread out between 4 schools in 3 districts. Not all in one district.


there is approx 120 deaf children in GBCHI.We are spread out over 10 school districts. They are Alvin, Clear Creek, Dickinson, Friendswood, LaMargue, Pearland,Galveston,Sante Fe,Pearland and Texas City in Texas.Kids dont currently live in all these districts at the monent.
These children start school in Sante Fe at R.J. Wollom(Sante Fe ISD) then go to Hall Elem in League City(Clear Creek ISD. From there they go to Creekside Intermediate(clear Creek ISD), which is the feeder school for Hall Elem., but for high school they go to Alvin High School(Alvin ISD). All these school districts are at least 30 minutes to an hour away so that is even longer bus rides. Most children dont move that much and are able to make long lasting friendships and to be able to be invloved in extracurricular programs. We are concerned about the school calender conflicts between the 3 different districts they attend along with the cost of all the educational needs.The costs for a special education for a student is high but districts are given federal/state funding to assist with the added costs to provide these additional services needed. Over 30 years ago(1977) GBCHI was developed due to the voices of the parents of children with hearing impairments however very little has changed in those years within the Coop. The technology, philosophy, and resources in deaf education have drastically changed in those same years. Our Coop is long over due for this change to meet our needs of today. Do you think that a student really wants to attend a school that already is sending a message that you are in for an uphill battle before you even begin?

Any educator would report that a student that is frequently moved to different school districts will create gaps in their education.This is for any student; regular,gifted and talented or special education. Our kids don't have a choice in any of their education as of right now. These kids really do struggle through school everytime there is a transition like that. Some parents are having to hire tutores to help our kids out in the teaching and handwriting differences between districts. With our kids in different districts that also means that the Interpreters, Audiologists, Speech Theropists, and couslors are also in three different distircts. With gas prices these days( at over $3 a gallon) that makes for a lot of funds going to gas for them to drive all over and the buses to run all over like that. These are people that have to deal with our kids on a regular basis from school to school and district to district. If they were all in one area it would be easily accessable to all schools everyday and cut down on travel time. It would also be easier for any staff that has to cover for someone due to illness or vacation time.

We have approached the 10 district superintendants about this issue but they say they dont think it needs to be changed even though they agree it would be a better way of doing things. Every meeting we have had with the districts has ended in no change. Having GBCHI students attending 3 different school districts is a form of discrimination for the students with hearing impairments. Isn't this their way of saying they only pick certain kids to attend their schools? How does that make them public schools? We only want the best for our children like any other parent out there. We want our high schoolers to attend Clear Springs High School(in Clear Creek ISD) but they aren't allowed. After further investigating I found out that kids from Heritage Park in Harris County(kids that live over 20 minutes away and have no disabilities) attend Clear Springs High School so i guess thats why they dont have room for our kids. Even though we only are needing 2 classrooms and the other children from Heritage Park have a school closer to them they could attend. Clear Springs High School is right next to Creekside Intermediate that they currently attend. It is the feeder school for them but they cant go there with their friends they have made the last 7 years (since 2nd grade). These are very important years in a childs life.