The Portsmouth School Board meets Tuesday night to consider phasing out the district's program for deaf and hard of hearing students. At the Little Harbour Elementary School, deaf students are taught side by side with hearing students. But they also have access to sign language interpreters and language specialists. NHPR's Raquel Maria Dillon reports.
Jon and Tracie Plodzik and their three children live in Dover, but they send their daughter Taylor to Little Harbor School in Portsmouth. After Taylor lost her hearing at age five, her mother says school was an isolating experience.
TRACIE :24 we knew that she was struggling very much in the Dover school system but we really didn?t know the depth of that until she went to Little Harbor and made these meat and potatoes friendships. She loves school she has high self-esteem?
JON her best friend is another deaf girl in the program.
Her father says they hear only good things at parent-teacher conferences. Taylor?s teachers sometimes even conduct class in sign language. And her hearing classmates have been taught to sign since kindergarten, so they understand her.
Taylor?s parents haven?t told her yet, but she might have to go back to her local school in Dover. Portsmouth school officials have proposed phasing out the deaf program. Portsmouth Superintendent Dr. Lyonel Tracey says other school districts can provide the same services that Little Harbour does.
TRACY :15 We believe that in educating kids with special needs, it?s more effective for them to be integrated into their own community, neighbors, friends classmates. Because that?s where they?ll have to live.
Jon Plodzik says that?s not an option for his daughter.
JON :23 And what people don?t understand is when you?re deaf as our daughter is, the other children in our neighborhood are not sensitive to her needs. They play keep away from Taylor. It?s something we?ve struggled with as parents. It breaks our hearts. She becomes the butt of their jokes and such.
Parents like the Plodzik?s have more options than ever. Taylor got a cochlear implant last year, but it will take time for her to understand the sounds being transmitted into her brain. Her parents say they want their daughter to be exposed to both spoken English and American Sign Language now, to grow academically and socially? They?re afraid she won?t get that at the local school.
JON :11 It?s an unfair burden for the families and school districts who have set up a program for one child. It?s unfair for child who has to be completely alone all day long.
Superintendent Tracy says the 14 deaf students in the program at Little Harbour are all from out of town. Under his proposal to phase out the program?
TRACY :16 three students will now be educated in their home districts. Portsmouth right now has no deaf students in the program at all. All are tuition students.
Districts like Dover pay for students like Taylor to attend school in Portsmouth. But Tracy says that tuition money only covers 20% of the program?s costs. Still, he says the move to eliminate the program is not a budgetary issue.
TRACY :25 this issue is much more about adult preferences than it is about the education of children. look at larger picture and not just talk about our own personal preferences. But it?s important to have children integrated into classrooms and in their neighborhoods with kids who don?t have special needs.
Portsmouth is a donor town, required to send 3.7 million dollars to help fund poorer school districts. School Board Member Carvel Tefft says the Portsmouth City Council has asked the schools to keep their budgets at zero percent growth.
TEFFT :12 it forces us to end up cutting not only programs, but if we were to follow through, there are perhaps up to 27 people positions that may be lost as well.
Advocates for the deaf say New Hampshire is woefully behind the times when it comes to deaf education. Susan Wolf-Downes is the Executive Director of the Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, a Concord-based clearinghouse of resources and referrals for the deaf. She?s deaf herself, so she spoke thru an interpreter?
WOLF-DOWNES :24 in fact NH is the only state that does not have a residential school for deaf children. Times have changed and more and more parents want to have their children at home. Kids were sent to statewide residential school. Now more parents can sign, which was not the case when I was a child.
Wolf-Downes says the controversy over the Little Harbour School highlights the need for regional deaf schools all over the state ? something that a legislative Commission recommended last year.
WOLF-DOWNES :22 what we are asking is that at this point, things be on hold and that ultimately there be a comprehensive regional program. The responsibility for these children lies with the Legislature, with the department of education, with the school districts.
Wolf-Downes says that kind of program would expose deaf children to both deaf and hearing people, provide accessible after-school activities, and make sure deaf children aren?t left behind. Just like Portsmouth?s program at Little Harbour School. For NHPR News, I?m RMD.
