Archives for July 2012

Bringing in the Right People

It never fails. “Who’s the new teacher?” is a main topic among parents, teachers, staff and students every spring and summer. With new teachers being hired every year, it’s understandably a topic of interest for stakeholders.

This is even truer for state schools for deaf students, given the cohesive Deaf community—and how many people worry about new hires’ language fluency, qualifications, respect for the community and culture, and experience.

Too many state schools for deaf students struggle to stay open because of misguided legislators and administrators who are, yes, hearing. Time after time, we are forced to explain to boards, administrators and governing bodies why it is so crucial that teachers and administrators not be only knowledgeable, but also have a firsthand understanding of what working in the Deaf community requires. Then our words are twisted and mangled beyond recognition in the media (“not deaf enough,” anyone?), and the community at large scoffs at our repeated pleas to be heard, calling us demanding, militant, and unrealistic.

The Minnesota State Academies (MSA)—comprised of the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf (MSAD) and Minnesota State Academy for the Blind, two separate campuses a mile or two apart—board hired a new superintendent. As the parent of four students who attend MSAD and as the wife of a MSAD teacher, I had a keen, vested interest in the process. [Read more…]

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