Miss-Delectable
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Parents ask BOE to pay for translators
Three parents who are deaf asked the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Thursday to pay for a translator to help them when they attend meetings at their children’s schools.
Citing Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the parents made their cases during the board’s regular business meeting. They said they have been told by principals that translators could not be provided because they did not have the budget to pay for it.
“Are you parents? Do you have children? Have you gone to their activities and interacted with school employees?” parent Cheryl Larsen asked with assistance from a translator. “I need to have that same right. Please let me and the other deaf parents have that same right and be fair to us like everyone else.”
The parents balked at the suggestion that they use their children as translators.
“I have a hearing daughter. I don’t want to rely on my daughter to interpret for me,” parent Karen Ethridge said. “I can’t ask her to give up her activities to translate for me.”
Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act states that “no qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall be excluded from, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under” any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.
One requirement among the Section 504 regulations includes effective communications with people who have hearing or vision disabilities.
Patty Spurlin said when she met with a school social worker, they had to write notes to each other, because the school could not provide an interpreter because of the budget.
“I want to be included in the school and understand what’s happening,” she said. “Writing back and forth is very impersonal.”
School board chairwoman Mary Kay Murphy asked for school district staff to gather more information for the board’s further consideration.
Three parents who are deaf asked the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Thursday to pay for a translator to help them when they attend meetings at their children’s schools.
Citing Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the parents made their cases during the board’s regular business meeting. They said they have been told by principals that translators could not be provided because they did not have the budget to pay for it.
“Are you parents? Do you have children? Have you gone to their activities and interacted with school employees?” parent Cheryl Larsen asked with assistance from a translator. “I need to have that same right. Please let me and the other deaf parents have that same right and be fair to us like everyone else.”
The parents balked at the suggestion that they use their children as translators.
“I have a hearing daughter. I don’t want to rely on my daughter to interpret for me,” parent Karen Ethridge said. “I can’t ask her to give up her activities to translate for me.”
Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act states that “no qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall be excluded from, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under” any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.
One requirement among the Section 504 regulations includes effective communications with people who have hearing or vision disabilities.
Patty Spurlin said when she met with a school social worker, they had to write notes to each other, because the school could not provide an interpreter because of the budget.
“I want to be included in the school and understand what’s happening,” she said. “Writing back and forth is very impersonal.”
School board chairwoman Mary Kay Murphy asked for school district staff to gather more information for the board’s further consideration.