Miss-Delectable
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http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2006/08/05/news_localstate/news_local_state.2.txt
Maybe it’s the endless farmland and desert, which isolates the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind from the rest of Idaho, or maybe it’s because ISDB students don’t communicate the same way other people do.
Regardless of what it may be, students and alumni believe that lawmakers don’t understand what the school is really doing for deaf and blind students.
Although the ISDB was celebrating its 100th birthday on Friday, most of the school’s faculty and alumni couldn’t keep their minds off the impending decisions from lawmakers in Boise.
“This may be the last time that the alumni will have to visit the school,” said Janette Lancaster through a sign-language interpreter. “The legislators have the opinion that it is better for the children to be in public schools, but I don’t think they realize what we do for the students here.”
Lancaster knows about the challenges the students face in the years ahead.
When she was a young girl, she grew up in a family that didn’t use sign language. She later enrolled in the ISDB, and found that she wasn’t alone in a ‘hearing world.’ She said living and learning with other students who were deaf expanded her world and she was able to see how other deaf and blind students were able to succeed in life.
Above all, she didn’t feel alone.
But lawmakers are proposing to shut down the residential campus, and enroll blind students in public schools while sending deaf students to day programs in five locations around Idaho.
The Gooding campus would then be used for a substance abuse treatment center.
Compared with the ISDB fiscal 2006 budget of $8.1 million, the plan would cost an additional $149,000 for a total of $8.3 million. Local school districts also would be responsible for transporting students to program sites, and hiring staff to accommodate blind students.
“As long as political people are deciding the future of education for the deaf and blind, nothing will get better,” said Angel Ramos, former superintendent of the ISDB. “Even if you look at the committee that is studying all this, you will find that there are no educators in the field, or educators who are deaf. How can they understand this?”
For now, Lancaster is wondering how to help the students understand what may be ahead.
She talks to the students about it almost every day, and struggles to find a way to explain how things might change.
If things have to change, she just hopes the students won’t feel isolated among hundreds of other students who don’t communicate the same way.
Maybe it’s the endless farmland and desert, which isolates the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind from the rest of Idaho, or maybe it’s because ISDB students don’t communicate the same way other people do.
Regardless of what it may be, students and alumni believe that lawmakers don’t understand what the school is really doing for deaf and blind students.
Although the ISDB was celebrating its 100th birthday on Friday, most of the school’s faculty and alumni couldn’t keep their minds off the impending decisions from lawmakers in Boise.
“This may be the last time that the alumni will have to visit the school,” said Janette Lancaster through a sign-language interpreter. “The legislators have the opinion that it is better for the children to be in public schools, but I don’t think they realize what we do for the students here.”
Lancaster knows about the challenges the students face in the years ahead.
When she was a young girl, she grew up in a family that didn’t use sign language. She later enrolled in the ISDB, and found that she wasn’t alone in a ‘hearing world.’ She said living and learning with other students who were deaf expanded her world and she was able to see how other deaf and blind students were able to succeed in life.
Above all, she didn’t feel alone.
But lawmakers are proposing to shut down the residential campus, and enroll blind students in public schools while sending deaf students to day programs in five locations around Idaho.
The Gooding campus would then be used for a substance abuse treatment center.
Compared with the ISDB fiscal 2006 budget of $8.1 million, the plan would cost an additional $149,000 for a total of $8.3 million. Local school districts also would be responsible for transporting students to program sites, and hiring staff to accommodate blind students.
“As long as political people are deciding the future of education for the deaf and blind, nothing will get better,” said Angel Ramos, former superintendent of the ISDB. “Even if you look at the committee that is studying all this, you will find that there are no educators in the field, or educators who are deaf. How can they understand this?”
For now, Lancaster is wondering how to help the students understand what may be ahead.
She talks to the students about it almost every day, and struggles to find a way to explain how things might change.
If things have to change, she just hopes the students won’t feel isolated among hundreds of other students who don’t communicate the same way.