Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,160
- Reaction score
- 7
Times-News: Magicvalley.com, Twin Falls, ID
Students at the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind squeezed around a table, leaning over trays heaped with nachos as they socialized without a sound. Their hands glided emphatically through the air, signing words in a cafeteria of empty chairs.
Called "the Cadillac" of deaf and blind education by its own director, the school has its supporters - and its critics. The State Board of Education is now considering cuts in the school's budget, leaving students here to think that officials have largely ignored their concerns.
Two deaf teenagers said that when they were in regular public schools they felt isolated and got poor grades. But that changed when they transferred to the state-run residential and day school in Gooding that has had more than 530 graduates since it opened in 1910 with 54 deaf or blind students.
Student numbers, along with the Gooding campus, burgeoned for decades. Then, in the early 1990s, enrollment started falling as medical advances began to limit or mitigate birth defects, and as more parents chose to keep their children closer to home and enrolled in local schools.
With just 61 students, the school now is at less than half its capacity. Many at the school fear closure is imminent.
Proponents of mainstreaming call schools for the deaf and blind outdated, expensive, inconvenient and undesirable. Meanwhile, federal mandates for education of disabled kids in the "least restrictive environment," have prompted local schools to expand services.
As a result, 64 deaf or blind and 309 hearing and visually impaired students attend class elsewhere in Idaho, according to the state Department of Education.
From the students' hands
The school will remain open for at least a year. Any legislative action would come in 2009, and "Any changes would not take effectâ€- until July 1, 2009," State Board Interim Director Mike Rush wrote in a Nov. 30 letter to parents.
By then, 18-year-old Jacob Sanders will have graduated. He plans to open a dog kennel and to teach animals sign language. Speaking through a translator, he said he doesn't want his alma mater to close.
"I have more friends," he said. "Here we can converse. It's a deeper friendship."
Sanders attended a public school in California before his family moved to Gooding when he was in fifth grade and enrolled him in the ISDB day school. His hearing peers in California tried to include him, but faced an insurmountable language barrier. "They tried to learn sign language but they'd forget," he said.
Many deaf and blind kids are socially isolated without a common language linking them to the rest of the world ��" a fact acknowledged by even the staunchest proponents of closing the school.
Deaf student Blanca Lopez, 17, is from Payette -two hours away on the Oregon border. She commutes home on weekends, but agrees that this is the best school for kids like her.
"I went to public school for eight years. I didn't have many friends. This is a better school," she said. "It's hard not having a lot of friends."
In her old school, she said, "They tried to write things down. They'd learn a few signs. There was very little communication." And even when interpreters were provided, they were slow and difficult to understand, the students said.
"I didn't understand her quite often," Lopez said, noting that sign language requires rapid hand motion. While it's difficult to travel so far from home and she sometimes misses her family, Lopez said she looks forward to returning to Gooding each Monday
Lopez, who is thinking about going to college and becoming a hair stylist, is worried about all the empty seats around her.
"I know the numbers have lessened. Hopefully they'll go up," she said.
Funding problems
From offices to classrooms, there's plenty of open space at ISDB. So much so that the school has leased space to the Gooding School District and in the fall will rent classrooms to a new charter school.
But as deaf and blind enrollment falls, costs climb.
"The cost-per-pupil is a great concern," said Rep. Jim Patrick, R-Twin Falls, who favors keeping the school open.
There are no good estimates for what it costs to educate a sensory-impaired student in a public school, but Idaho spends about $6,000 per year on non-disabled students.
Each residential student in Gooding costs $82,000 per year, while day students run $59,000 each, according to a study in 2005. Maintaining the school takes more than $8 million per year, even as the number of residential students continues to dwindle ��" from 98 in 1991 to just 32 in 2007.
Since that report from the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations, the state has increased funding for ISDB outreach programs while cutting money for campus operations.
But the lingering question is how much money, if any, would be saved by closing ISDB? A 2006 estimate by Legislative budget and policy analysts found that the total cost to the state would actually increase by about $150,000 if the school was closed and students shifted to local schools and regional schools for the deaf.
Two bills prompted by the study hit the Legislature in 2006. One authorized the Gooding school to provide statewide outreach for kids younger than 21. The other, a broader overhaul of the deaf and blind education model, failed to pass but prompted the State Board of Education to create a study committee.
Two years later, the committee members are still talking, a State Board spokesman said.
Closing the doors?
While analysts have identified other options, many educators fear some kids will suffer if the Gooding school closes.
"I think there would be students who need this level of schooling, who would fall through the cracks," said Gretchen Spooner, principal of the Gooding school. "Districts would do their best, but probably couldn't provide the level of service we do."
Patrick agrees, saying, "The school for the deaf and blind provides a great service that cannot be replaced by the public schools. I am a great supporter, but I may be swimming upstream."
Public school officials say much the same.
"For many students, they're far better served at ISDB then we could provide at the local level," said Cassia County School District Superintendent Gaylen Smyer.
In Twin Falls, 27 deaf and blind students are learning in local schools, and 10 more attend the Gooding day school, said Clara Alred, the district's special services coordinator.
"We're all scared," Alred said of the possibility that ISDB could close, adding to her district's financial load.
Nor are local school officials confident there are enough qualified teachers.
"There would be a whole lot of districts vying for teachers," said Smyer. "They're specialized â€- There wouldn't be enough people to go around."
"There's a huge shortage," echoed Gooding school Director Mary Dunne. "The shortage is worse than before. It's supply and demand."
But State Board officials say they'll work with state colleges and universities to develop a teacher training program.
Classrooms of a different kind
The backs of chairs strewn around an open classroom were taped with paper tags bearing each student's name. One child searched for his seat, approaching each chair slowly, getting closer and closer until his nose was only inches from the tag. After a short search, he found his chair and carried it to a station for one-on-one time with a teacher.
In a nearby room, a few deaf preschool children sat in a circle, taking in the sights around them. Their heads followed their eyes scanning different fixtures of the room. Their hands rubbed the carpet under their legs, sitting still only seconds for their patient teacher, wearing a microphone headset to accommodate kids with Cochlear ear implants.
The teacher was demonstrating sign language, showing small cards with pictures of things they've seen but cannot yet name. A child rubbed his hands on his chest in a scrubbing motion when he saw a picture of a bathtub.
Principal Gretchen Spooner said the small class is typical at the school, and told of a deaf teenager from Mexico who arrived at the school with no formal education at all. The new student slowly learned the basics of signing, then came the almost unimaginable day when she learned the names of her family members ��" people she'd been with her whole life, but never knew what to call. Nowadays, she frequently smiles, waves and signs at visitors to her classroom, asking quickly–for their names.
And in a math class taught by a hearing impaired teacher, students intently watched the board and their teacher's hands. They followed along with the questions and raised their hands with answers. Learning geometry and algebra is hardly a challenge for them. Even a blind student in the deaf teacher's class follows along with a translator.
Jacob Sanders, the youth man who hopes to have a kennel one day, said even subtle differences in style at the state school make a big difference.
Teachers at his old school didn't write everything on the board, he said. Moreover, by looking down to take notes, he'd miss a translator's signs and couldn't follow lectures
"Here they use the board and they sign, and they explain more, it's so much easier to learn the information."
Learning from "someone like me" makes it all easier, he said.
Students at the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind squeezed around a table, leaning over trays heaped with nachos as they socialized without a sound. Their hands glided emphatically through the air, signing words in a cafeteria of empty chairs.
Called "the Cadillac" of deaf and blind education by its own director, the school has its supporters - and its critics. The State Board of Education is now considering cuts in the school's budget, leaving students here to think that officials have largely ignored their concerns.
Two deaf teenagers said that when they were in regular public schools they felt isolated and got poor grades. But that changed when they transferred to the state-run residential and day school in Gooding that has had more than 530 graduates since it opened in 1910 with 54 deaf or blind students.
Student numbers, along with the Gooding campus, burgeoned for decades. Then, in the early 1990s, enrollment started falling as medical advances began to limit or mitigate birth defects, and as more parents chose to keep their children closer to home and enrolled in local schools.
With just 61 students, the school now is at less than half its capacity. Many at the school fear closure is imminent.
Proponents of mainstreaming call schools for the deaf and blind outdated, expensive, inconvenient and undesirable. Meanwhile, federal mandates for education of disabled kids in the "least restrictive environment," have prompted local schools to expand services.
As a result, 64 deaf or blind and 309 hearing and visually impaired students attend class elsewhere in Idaho, according to the state Department of Education.
From the students' hands
The school will remain open for at least a year. Any legislative action would come in 2009, and "Any changes would not take effectâ€- until July 1, 2009," State Board Interim Director Mike Rush wrote in a Nov. 30 letter to parents.
By then, 18-year-old Jacob Sanders will have graduated. He plans to open a dog kennel and to teach animals sign language. Speaking through a translator, he said he doesn't want his alma mater to close.
"I have more friends," he said. "Here we can converse. It's a deeper friendship."
Sanders attended a public school in California before his family moved to Gooding when he was in fifth grade and enrolled him in the ISDB day school. His hearing peers in California tried to include him, but faced an insurmountable language barrier. "They tried to learn sign language but they'd forget," he said.
Many deaf and blind kids are socially isolated without a common language linking them to the rest of the world ��" a fact acknowledged by even the staunchest proponents of closing the school.
Deaf student Blanca Lopez, 17, is from Payette -two hours away on the Oregon border. She commutes home on weekends, but agrees that this is the best school for kids like her.
"I went to public school for eight years. I didn't have many friends. This is a better school," she said. "It's hard not having a lot of friends."
In her old school, she said, "They tried to write things down. They'd learn a few signs. There was very little communication." And even when interpreters were provided, they were slow and difficult to understand, the students said.
"I didn't understand her quite often," Lopez said, noting that sign language requires rapid hand motion. While it's difficult to travel so far from home and she sometimes misses her family, Lopez said she looks forward to returning to Gooding each Monday
Lopez, who is thinking about going to college and becoming a hair stylist, is worried about all the empty seats around her.
"I know the numbers have lessened. Hopefully they'll go up," she said.
Funding problems
From offices to classrooms, there's plenty of open space at ISDB. So much so that the school has leased space to the Gooding School District and in the fall will rent classrooms to a new charter school.
But as deaf and blind enrollment falls, costs climb.
"The cost-per-pupil is a great concern," said Rep. Jim Patrick, R-Twin Falls, who favors keeping the school open.
There are no good estimates for what it costs to educate a sensory-impaired student in a public school, but Idaho spends about $6,000 per year on non-disabled students.
Each residential student in Gooding costs $82,000 per year, while day students run $59,000 each, according to a study in 2005. Maintaining the school takes more than $8 million per year, even as the number of residential students continues to dwindle ��" from 98 in 1991 to just 32 in 2007.
Since that report from the Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations, the state has increased funding for ISDB outreach programs while cutting money for campus operations.
But the lingering question is how much money, if any, would be saved by closing ISDB? A 2006 estimate by Legislative budget and policy analysts found that the total cost to the state would actually increase by about $150,000 if the school was closed and students shifted to local schools and regional schools for the deaf.
Two bills prompted by the study hit the Legislature in 2006. One authorized the Gooding school to provide statewide outreach for kids younger than 21. The other, a broader overhaul of the deaf and blind education model, failed to pass but prompted the State Board of Education to create a study committee.
Two years later, the committee members are still talking, a State Board spokesman said.
Closing the doors?
While analysts have identified other options, many educators fear some kids will suffer if the Gooding school closes.
"I think there would be students who need this level of schooling, who would fall through the cracks," said Gretchen Spooner, principal of the Gooding school. "Districts would do their best, but probably couldn't provide the level of service we do."
Patrick agrees, saying, "The school for the deaf and blind provides a great service that cannot be replaced by the public schools. I am a great supporter, but I may be swimming upstream."
Public school officials say much the same.
"For many students, they're far better served at ISDB then we could provide at the local level," said Cassia County School District Superintendent Gaylen Smyer.
In Twin Falls, 27 deaf and blind students are learning in local schools, and 10 more attend the Gooding day school, said Clara Alred, the district's special services coordinator.
"We're all scared," Alred said of the possibility that ISDB could close, adding to her district's financial load.
Nor are local school officials confident there are enough qualified teachers.
"There would be a whole lot of districts vying for teachers," said Smyer. "They're specialized â€- There wouldn't be enough people to go around."
"There's a huge shortage," echoed Gooding school Director Mary Dunne. "The shortage is worse than before. It's supply and demand."
But State Board officials say they'll work with state colleges and universities to develop a teacher training program.
Classrooms of a different kind
The backs of chairs strewn around an open classroom were taped with paper tags bearing each student's name. One child searched for his seat, approaching each chair slowly, getting closer and closer until his nose was only inches from the tag. After a short search, he found his chair and carried it to a station for one-on-one time with a teacher.
In a nearby room, a few deaf preschool children sat in a circle, taking in the sights around them. Their heads followed their eyes scanning different fixtures of the room. Their hands rubbed the carpet under their legs, sitting still only seconds for their patient teacher, wearing a microphone headset to accommodate kids with Cochlear ear implants.
The teacher was demonstrating sign language, showing small cards with pictures of things they've seen but cannot yet name. A child rubbed his hands on his chest in a scrubbing motion when he saw a picture of a bathtub.
Principal Gretchen Spooner said the small class is typical at the school, and told of a deaf teenager from Mexico who arrived at the school with no formal education at all. The new student slowly learned the basics of signing, then came the almost unimaginable day when she learned the names of her family members ��" people she'd been with her whole life, but never knew what to call. Nowadays, she frequently smiles, waves and signs at visitors to her classroom, asking quickly–for their names.
And in a math class taught by a hearing impaired teacher, students intently watched the board and their teacher's hands. They followed along with the questions and raised their hands with answers. Learning geometry and algebra is hardly a challenge for them. Even a blind student in the deaf teacher's class follows along with a translator.
Jacob Sanders, the youth man who hopes to have a kennel one day, said even subtle differences in style at the state school make a big difference.
Teachers at his old school didn't write everything on the board, he said. Moreover, by looking down to take notes, he'd miss a translator's signs and couldn't follow lectures
"Here they use the board and they sign, and they explain more, it's so much easier to learn the information."
Learning from "someone like me" makes it all easier, he said.