http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9873429

Parents fume over lack of school for deaf, blind kids
mailto:bfulton@sltrib.com

By Ben Fulton
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 07/14/2008 06:23:14 AM MDT

Jodi Kinner of West Jordan is deaf and has two deaf children, so she can’t hear the excuses state lawmakers dole out when explaining why Utah’s deaf students don’t have a school building to call their own.

That doesn’t mean she can’t see what’s going on, however. Along with several other parents of deaf children, Kinner has tired of watching her children shuttle from school to school, attending class in facilities with insufficient space or in “rundown” condition.
The struggle for permanent facilities for deaf students has gone on so long that parents and administrators for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind can’t agree on how many years it has lasted. Kinner counts this as the 10th year state lawmakers have turned down requests for a building. Melanie Austin, assistant superintendent for USDB, said the schools have been asking lawmakers politely for seven or eight years.
Parents feel their children are slighted, if not because of their disability, then by the fact that they can’t speak up like other children.

Austin said USDB has made solid efforts to secure a school, but only so much can be granted by a state continually strapped for education funds.

While a USDB facility exists in Ogden, parents feel Salt Lake County needs its own building to serve deaf and blind students in the largest population center.

Fed up, Kinner and about 100 others protested Tuesday at the state Capitol, hoping that lawmakers might finally find funds for a permanent USDB school in Salt Lake County.

In the 2007 legislative session, lawmakers offered Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind a five-story office building plus half a million dollars for renovations. It was that or nothing, Kinner remembers. USDB soon learned the building’s first floor alone would need $1.4 million worth of renovating, and that building code wouldn’t allow a school in a building of more than three stories. When USDB was offered a building in the Salt Lake City School District at $660,000 per year to lease, Kinner said the state offered only $248,000 in one-time funding.

The Jean Massieu School of American Sign Language at 1350 W. South Jordan Parkway, where Kinner’s children are students, is scheduled for demolition by a charter school that shared its lease with Massieu students while waiting for its new school to be built.
The 72 Jean Massieu students will then move into USDB’s old administrative offices in Salt Lake City at the old Grandview Elementary School building. Even that move is temporary, Austin said, because the lease there expires next year.

With school starting in less than six weeks, Kinner has little faith the building can be ready in time.

“We feel our children have been marginalized, because their sensory impairments appear to make them less worthy citizens than other ‘normal’ school children who have buildings and equipment and green space and mascots and identity,” Kinner stated in an e-mail.
Kinner points to the federal Disabilities Education Act, which requires “equal and appropriate education placement options” for students with disabilities.

USDB serves about 2,100 students from birth to age 21, said Austin. Anywhere from 85 percent to 90 percent of those are deaf, 10 percent to 15 percent are blind or visually impaired, with a small percentage both deaf and blind. Many deaf students attend traditional schools where most learn skills in reading lips, while students who prefer an American Sign Language curriculum with their deaf peers attend Jean Massieu. Deaf and hearing impaired students often respond better to one curriculum over another.
Because the USDB is considered both a state agency and a school, it cannot bond and collect money similar to other schools, but must go the Legislature every year to explain its needs and request money through those avenues. As a state agency, it’s also vulnerable to budget cuts.

SDB was the subject of a state audit report in February 2004 that was critical of its financial management practices, and ways in which it monitored teaching effectiveness. Joe Zeidner, a Salt Lake City attorney whose 15-year-old daughter Jesse attends the school, believes USDB’s ineffective management practices have tainted agency requests for improved school facilities.

“They need leadership that can articulate problems and present them to lawmakers in a better fashion,” Zeidner said. “Parents would be outraged if this was happening to hearing students.”

Gwyneth Kenner’s 10-year-old son Joshua receives USDB instruction at Millcreek Elementary, but even she saw the need to protest Tuesday for a permanent school. “Because the Legislature funds us as one school, what affects one of us affects us all,” she said. “It was no treat hanging around in the heat of the Capitol, but it was necessary.”
bfulton@sltrib.com

Utah Schools for the Deaf
and the Blind
* USDB serves about 2,100 students from birth to age 21.
* Anywhere from 85 to 90 percent of those are deaf, 10 to 15 percent are blind or visually impaired, with a small percentage both deaf and blind.
* Because the USDB is considered both a state agency and a school, it cannot bond and collect money as other schools do, but instead must go the Legislature every year to explain its needs and request money through those avenues.