Miss-Delectable
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The Galveston County Daily News
Parents of deaf students already impatient with a system that shuffles their children from one school district to another are hoping new zoning changes don’t exacerbate their problems.
Clear Creek Independent School District’s proposed zoning changes, which would change where 18 percent of district students attend school, could shift the regionwide deaf education program away from the program’s home campuses.
That’s a change parents say they don’t want.
Regina Burdett’s seventh grade son attended four different elementary schools — changes caused by the program’s scheduled campus changes and Clear Creek’s last rezoning battle.
That campus switch came toward the end of the school year, long after public hearings addressed other residents’ zoning concerns, she said.
“I feel like they do the zoning to best please the residents,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Let’s just deal with everybody else and we’ll move (the deaf education program) and just make it work.”
This time, parents are lobbying the district earlier to prevent another move.
District administrators just began discussing the possibility of moving the deaf education program Monday, district spokeswoman Elaina Polsen said.
It’s too soon to say what will happen, she said.
The new attendance zones won’t directly affect what schools deaf students attend because all hearing-impaired students in Galveston County school districts are part of a larger program.
Deaf students in the Galveston-Brazoria Cooperative for the Hearing Impaired, which includes Galveston County and two Brazoria County school districts, are on a program with scheduled district and campus switches.
Students attend a Santa Fe elementary school from early childhood until first grade, a Clear Creek elementary school from second until fifth grade, a Clear Creek intermediate school and Alvin High School.
Clear Creek’s expanding growth has meant that, on top of the scheduled changes, the district has switched which campuses house the program twice in recent years.
“There’s no doubt that moving schools would be difficult for a typical, hearing child,” parent Kristi Ferguson said. “When you’re dealing with a hearing-impaired child, they have plenty of struggles as it is. This is just going to make it that much worse.”
This year, deaf students attended Hall Elementary and Creekside Intermediate. Three years ago, they went to Goforth Elementary and Victory Lakes Intermediate. Four years before that, students went to League City Elementary and League City Intermediate.
Ferguson said she watched other parents become angry about proposed zoning changes during public hearings last week.
“You have parents adamantly against their children going to another school,” she said. “This is constantly happening to our kids. This isn’t the only time it happens. We’ve been trying and trying to talk to the superintendent, and we’re not getting any help.”
Polsen said any changes, including most of the proposed zoning changes, wouldn’t take affect until the 2009-10 school year.
“We’re very sensitive to the fact that they’ve been moved before and we’re trying to limit it as much as possible,” she said. “It’s certainly up for discussion.”
Parents of deaf students already impatient with a system that shuffles their children from one school district to another are hoping new zoning changes don’t exacerbate their problems.
Clear Creek Independent School District’s proposed zoning changes, which would change where 18 percent of district students attend school, could shift the regionwide deaf education program away from the program’s home campuses.
That’s a change parents say they don’t want.
Regina Burdett’s seventh grade son attended four different elementary schools — changes caused by the program’s scheduled campus changes and Clear Creek’s last rezoning battle.
That campus switch came toward the end of the school year, long after public hearings addressed other residents’ zoning concerns, she said.
“I feel like they do the zoning to best please the residents,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Let’s just deal with everybody else and we’ll move (the deaf education program) and just make it work.”
This time, parents are lobbying the district earlier to prevent another move.
District administrators just began discussing the possibility of moving the deaf education program Monday, district spokeswoman Elaina Polsen said.
It’s too soon to say what will happen, she said.
The new attendance zones won’t directly affect what schools deaf students attend because all hearing-impaired students in Galveston County school districts are part of a larger program.
Deaf students in the Galveston-Brazoria Cooperative for the Hearing Impaired, which includes Galveston County and two Brazoria County school districts, are on a program with scheduled district and campus switches.
Students attend a Santa Fe elementary school from early childhood until first grade, a Clear Creek elementary school from second until fifth grade, a Clear Creek intermediate school and Alvin High School.
Clear Creek’s expanding growth has meant that, on top of the scheduled changes, the district has switched which campuses house the program twice in recent years.
“There’s no doubt that moving schools would be difficult for a typical, hearing child,” parent Kristi Ferguson said. “When you’re dealing with a hearing-impaired child, they have plenty of struggles as it is. This is just going to make it that much worse.”
This year, deaf students attended Hall Elementary and Creekside Intermediate. Three years ago, they went to Goforth Elementary and Victory Lakes Intermediate. Four years before that, students went to League City Elementary and League City Intermediate.
Ferguson said she watched other parents become angry about proposed zoning changes during public hearings last week.
“You have parents adamantly against their children going to another school,” she said. “This is constantly happening to our kids. This isn’t the only time it happens. We’ve been trying and trying to talk to the superintendent, and we’re not getting any help.”
Polsen said any changes, including most of the proposed zoning changes, wouldn’t take affect until the 2009-10 school year.
“We’re very sensitive to the fact that they’ve been moved before and we’re trying to limit it as much as possible,” she said. “It’s certainly up for discussion.”