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State Leaders Summit : Making a Commitment to Systems Change in Deaf Education
May 7, 8 & 9, 2007, Columbia , MD
Name of Facilitator/Presenter Leeanne Seaver & Larry Siegel
E-mail Address Leeanne@handsandvoices.org
Name of Recorder Heather Abraham
E-mail Address heather.abraham@wsd.wa.gov
Topic title and brief description:
Do We Need a Deaf Child's Bill of Rights?
Key Issues or Points of Discussion:
Introduction Statements:
- "Bill of Rights" is dependent on the content and how much is mandated.
- What are the goals in your state? What do you want to do? The bigger the goal, the harder it is to get enacted. The bigger the mandate, the harder to pass. Weigh short-term and long-term goals.
- If you start high, you'll end up in the mid-ground. If you start mid-ground, you end up low. So start high and know that you'll have to compromise.
- Need Brown vs. Board of Education - nationally recognized right to language, otherwise you have a changing, "piece meal" approach.
Do You Need a Mandate at the State Level?
- Bill of rights can be very broad - importance of communication and language, critical mass, professionals who can communicate proficiently, difference between deaf children being visitors vs. members of educational world
- Question is what do you want and can the DCBR become a vehicle for getting what you want
- Should be a mechanism for mandating a Communication plan and LRE policy
- If you want something and it's not mandated, then you struggle at every IEP and will run up against people who will say no
Does the BOR help to define how deafness is "different"?
- Point is to emphasize unique needs of this student population
- Will get no points in legislative environment for pointing out that deafness is different. Colorado never used that approach, but rather the bumper sticker motto: preserve choices for children who are deaf/hard of hearing
- Bills of Rights are important even if they don't have a mandate so get the state to make a recognition of need which has value
- Moral issue related to human rights that communication and language is basic right of all communication
Which States Have a Bill of Rights?
SD, CO, CA, LA, NM, Hawaii, GA, KS, CT, a full list provided at www.ndepnow.org
How do you Package it?
- Language in CO said "nothing in this law will require districts to higher additional staff."
- Luckily, OSEP came in and nixed that language, however the law wouldn't have passed if it had a fiscal note attached
- Focus should be that the real issues stay central and legislators are educated on the main needs
- Include parent training plan in legislation
- 4 Fundamental Building Blocks: listening, speaking, reading, writing--Deaf children don't have those basic right of listening, so need to document how will augment listening opportunities to achieve these building blocks (this is an IA example from their successful 2007 bid for more ISD funds from the legislature)
- Will encounter other groups that are larger with more money and lobbying leverage that will shoot you down on the "deafness is different point"-political savvy is essential
- Should it be a general "Bill of Rights" if the focus is on the right to communication? Would that cover Spanish-speaking students, too?
- Fundamental points of communication includes even the ability to eavesdrop and have a wide variety of communication and skills and we need to talk about the fact that deaf and hard of hearing people's needs are not being met and they will continue to not be met if we don't discuss these issues. Include the dialogue about human rights, social justice and the ability to be a member of the community, not a visitor
Once passed, how do you then write guidelines for implementation of the bill and then develop a process for getting it into the hands of the parents and schools
- Colorado developed the "Communication Plan" which is not part of the law, but a product of the Regulations which require it as an addendum to every DHH IEP
- Need to educate people in how to use the document and make sure that parents are aware of it
- Parents and educators need to come to the table and make a plan for implementation. Need to discuss the different perspectives that participants bring
- Things need to know
- How to fill out the form (this was the professional's first question in Colorado !)
- Focus on outcomes the parents want to see
- Create action plans to get to those outcomes
Issue: The Communication Plan as a vehicle for special considerations is powerful, but be prepared for someone to say that you don't need to have it written in an IEP
- There is nothing in IDEA that says any service that is discussed needs to be written, such as OT/PT, but once you agree that it is to be provided, you have to write it down
- Want parents, educators and Deaf people making decisions, not legislators
- Want to reduce due process complaints because people have done the right thing
The law is not the end game (PA/Fischgrund)
-- But we need to reach a point where we don't simply rely on people who "do the right thing." There is a legal need to have a right for children to have access. (L. Siegel)
What about a DCBR on the National Level?
- Difficult to get things federally passed, so approach has been to focus on states
- Then can get a leadership group together to go to feds and address it nationally based on the momentum with state level DCBR legislation growing.