posted on April 23, 2001 01:16:36 AM new
Anyone got a bullet?? This principle needs one, in a hurry.
Westerholm said, "Rest assured, we are not going to do anything that jeopardizes a true handicapped student." Does that mean what it sounds like? Is he saying that this little girl is not handicapped??
What does she have to have done to her for him to recognise that there is a problem.
posted on April 23, 2001 03:59:21 AM new
In truth, we don't know that the girl is deaf.
The prior action by the parents claiming that deafness resulted from a bottle rocket set off near her with school culpability for that seems strange to me. Bottle rockets aren't very noisy, but only a medical review could establish any basis for that claim.
So keep open the possibility that the entire episode is a sham, or overblown somehow far past the reality of the situation on the bus.
Wording such as "true handicapped" seems to imply that it is the belief of the school administration that the girl is not in fact actually a deaf person.
near her, not here
[ edited by krs on Apr 23, 2001 06:20 AM ]
posted on April 23, 2001 04:10:18 AM new
Maybe they can't admit she has any hearing loss because they are being sued for her hearing loss because they did not supervise well enough to keep fireworks out of the school.
I am sure a competant audiologist can test for hearing loss and a child could not fake it.
I can assure you that you don't have to be stone deaf to have a great deal of trouble understanding speech.
I am very hard of hearing and had trouble with understanding speech when half my hearing was gone.
Right now my old hearing aids won't help anymore and I can't afford two new ones.
The multi-channel digital ones I need are $2k++ each. My wife works for a university but we have no insurance coverage for that although we have preety good coverage foe medical/dental/glasses.
[ edited by gravid on Apr 23, 2001 04:12 AM ]
posted on April 23, 2001 04:23:26 AM new
I have to admit that I did wonder and have second thoughts when I saw that the child has a brother with a hearing impairment. I did wonder if this is for real or not, but presumably the rocket thing was witnessed by others at the school.
How do we know if it is real or not. But the fact is that the principle in all probability does not know for sure either and he still does not have the right to stop her from communicating by signing.
The school administration may not think this child is deaf, but that has not been determined yet, and they should respect the fact that she may very well not be able to hear, as her parents state.
posted on April 23, 2001 04:29:36 AM new
I was wondering - how did the girl learn to use sign language in such a short time, but if she has a hearing impaired brother, I guess she has grown up with it. My other question was: If she was doing sign language in the bus - who exactly was she talking to, presuming of course that the bus was not full of deaf people.
posted on April 23, 2001 04:32:33 AM new
This young girl has been learning signing at school for 3 years, it was in one of the reports that I saw. She does practice with her brother, or at least that is what her parents have said.
posted on April 23, 2001 01:32:50 PM new
I don't think the parents would be suing the school for the bottle rocket incident without having proof that her hearing was damaged.
The comment from the principal about "truly handicapped" ticked me off. I just spent the day at work with people who think it's really funny that I can't hear them if they are talking to me from the back room. They don't know what it's like to be hard of hearing - it's frankly quite embarrassing to have someone talk to you and you don't hear them. If I had a choice, I'd rather hear them. As gravid said, you don't have to be completely deaf to have trouble knowing what is going on around you.
Is it possible this girl was signing something naughty when all this started? Yep. She's twelve! If that is the case, then the school should be addressing that issue, not banning the sign language. It's apples and oranges - one is a discipline issue, the other is violation of federal law.
