Indiana Association of the Deaf » admin

URGENT REGARDING HB 1367

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:25:07 +0000

WE NEED YOUR HELP…

It is extremely important you continue to write, email, call and meet with your district Senator to Oppose HB 1367. It has been assigned to the Appropriations Committee. If you or your family lives in their district, it is even more important that you get in touch with them to Oppose HB1367. They will listen to you and will record your opposition. Tell your friends and family to do this now.

Please register my opposition to HB 1367. I am all in favor of quality Outreach services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. But it should not happen through rushed legislation that is based on no official report to show justification to dismantle an entire system of service and support to parents and educators in Indiana.

Rather than revamp, let’s enhance and keep Deaf Education Outreach in the hands of those who know it best and are the experts in this field…the Indiana School for the Deaf. One-stop shopping Outreach can happen for all families with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children through cost-efficient means and through an already well-established state agency.

ISD’s Outreach is top in the nation for delivering unbiased resources to parents so they can make educational decisions on the “choices/opportunities” available in the state of Indiana for their Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. Let’s make it happen through a transparent process based on factual information and real costs to taxpayers outside the control of the Office of Management and Budget who are not the experts in Deaf Education.

Deaf children deserve the best services through Outreach. Deaf children deserve to be valued. They grow up to be Deaf people, Deaf professionals, and stakeholders. They want a voice in the process before legislation that affects them comes to the table. This bill lacks transparency on all levels and that is why I oppose this bill.

Senate Appropriations Committee:

Majority Chair:
Senator Luke Kenley (R) District 20
County: Hamilton
Hometown: Noblesville
317-232-9453
s20@in.gov

Minority Chair:
Senator John Broden (D) District 10
County: St. Joseph
Hometown: South Bend
317-232-9849
s10@in.gov

Senator Phil Boots (R) District 23
County: Parke
Hometown: Crawfordsville
317-234-9054
s23@in.gov

Senator Edward Charbonneau (R) District 5
County: Porter
Hometown: Valparaiso
317-232-9494
s5@in.gov
edcharbonneau@comcast.net

Senator Brandt Hershman (R) District 7
County: Tippecanoe
Hometown: Buck Creek
317-232-9840
s7@in.gov

Senator Lindel Hume (D) District 48
County: Pike
Hometown: Princeton
317-232-9523
s48@in.gov
lhume@insightbb.com

Senator Connie Lawson (R) District 24 (Bill Author)
County: Hendricks
Hometown: Danville
317-232-9414
s24@in.gov

Senator Patricia Miller (R) District 32
County: Marion
Hometown: Indianapolis
317-232-9489
s32@in.gov

Senator Ryan Mishler (R) District 9
County: Portions of Elkhart, Kosciusko, Marshall and St. Joseph
Hometown: Bremen
s9@in.gov
Senator.Mishler@iga.in.gov

Senator Earline Rogers (D) District 3
County: Lake
Hometown: Gary
317-232-9491
s3@in.gov

Senator Karen Tallian (D) District 11
County: Porter
Hometown: Portage
317-232-9847
s11@in.gov

Senator Brent Waltz (R) District 36
Hometown: Indianapolis
County: Marion
317-232-9426
s36@in.gov

Senator Thomas Wyss (R) District 15
County: Allen
Hometown: Fort Wayne
317-232-9807
s15@in.gov

Contact your Senator!!

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:28:41 +0000

OPPOSE HB1367
NOW IN THE SENATE

HB 1367 passed the House and is now moving to the Senate. We thank each of you for putting so much time and effort into opposing this bill. We are entering the second half so please continue the momentum and contact your Senator. They need to hear from you, your family, and your friends. The links to find your Senator are listed above under the HB1367 tab.

Find Your Senator and District Map: http://district.iga.in.gov/DistrictLookup

Indiana Senator Listing and Districts:
http://www.in.gov/cgi-bin/legislative/listing/listing-2.pl?data=district&chamber=Senate

URGENT – URGENT – URGENT OPPOSE HB 1367 TODAY!!

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:04:59 +0000

URGENT – URGENT – URGENT OPPOSE HB 1367 TODAY!!
CALL AND EMAIL

Below is a script to use when emailing and calling your legislators. Do this today, tomorrow and Monday. Add your personal stories as well. Send this to your family and friends to do the same.

The emails of all the representatives are listed below. Be sure to call and send you district representatives a personal email. You can find your district representative on IAD’s website, www.iadhoosiers.org.

Your Name, Address, and Phone Number

Script:
Please register my opposition to HB 1367 and Vote NO to this bill. Rather than revamp…enhance already existing services at ISD’s Outreach.

This bill is NOT about parent Choice of options and services when it comes to Outreach services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children. It is about gutting one state agency that is an expert in Deaf Education and Early Intervention, the Indiana School for the Deaf Outreach, to replace it with an unknown, unplanned, and unfunded agency under the SOLE direction of the Office of Management and Budget with no accountability to anyone.

This bill was based upon NO official OMB report on ISD’s Outreach and NO accurate fiscal analysis. This bill aims to gut ISD’s Outreach by reinventing the wheel with NO Plan instead of simply enhancing services that are already provided through ISD’s Outreach. This bill is not a Study Group…this bill creates a team SOLELY administered and overseen by OMB who has full authority to hire who they want and place this center wherever they like. This bill seriously leaves out Deaf/ASL Professionals. Deaf children WILL fall through the cracks without Deaf professionals.

* ASL means American Sign Language. A full language comparable to any spoken language.

FACTS:

ISD’s Outreach Holds NO Bias and DOES meet the resource needs of ALL Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in Indiana. Deaf professionals work along hearing professionals to provide Best Practices in Early Intervention and Education.
ISD’s Outreach already works with DOE, DOH, FSSA, Early Steps, and even a private religious oral school called St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf.
ISD’s Outreach is separate from ISD “the school”. Don’t let them throw you off: ISD’s test scores are low because many students who are in mainstream who are failing get enrolled at ISD at a late ages…8, 12, 15 etc., many times middle school. By this time, they are so far behind in language and academics that it is almost impossible to catch them up. ISD tries its best BUT this still pulls ISD’s state test scores down. Those students that start at ISD at an early age, on the average, do VERY well on their state testing. So don’t be fooled. ISD is one of the top schools for the Deaf in the nation.
90% of Deaf children come from hearing families. 80% are mainstreamed. There is N0 data on how many use ASL or spoken language or both.
Cochlear implants are not a cure. Many children with cochlear implants will not benefit from them or will later stop using them. The cochlear implant removes all hearing and when the cochlear implant breaks down or batteries fail, the child is left without any residual hearing.
St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf who provide services for ages 0 to 8 and Hear Indiana organization are advocate for oral only education and Outreach. This small private school does not provide for any ASL and in fact prohibits its use. ISD’s Outreach is inclusive of all approaches, languages, and opportunities for all ages of Deaf and Hard of Hearing from ages 0 to 21.

Please vote responsibly…..Vote NO.

Thank You,
Your Name

Cut and paste…Put your name in the To: and then put these addresses (below) in the Bcc:. Include your name, address, and phone number.

h1@in.gov; h2@in.gov; h3@in.gov; h4@in.gov; h5@in.gov; h6@in.gov; h7@in.gov; h8@in.gov; h9@in.gov; h10@in.gov; h11@in.gov; h12@in.gov; h13@in.gov; h14@in.gov; h15@in.gov; h16@in.gov; h17@in.gov; h18@in.gov; h19@in.gov; h20@in.gov; h21@in.gov; h22@in.gov; h23@in.gov; h24@in.gov; h25@in.gov; h26@in.gov; h27@in.gov; h28@in.gov; h29@in.gov; h30@in.gov; h31@in.gov; h32@in.gov; h33@in.gov; h34@in.gov; h35@in.gov; h36@in.gov; h37@in.gov; h38@in.gov; h39@in.gov; h40@in.gov; h41@in.gov; h42@in.gov; h43@in.gov; h44@in.gov; h45@in.gov; h46@in.gov; h47@in.gov; h48@in.gov; h49@in.gov; h50@in.gov; h51@in.gov; h52@in.gov; h53@in.gov; h54@in.gov; h55@in.gov; h56@in.gov; h57@in.gov; h58@in.gov; h59@in.gov; h60@in.gov; h61@in.gov; h62@in.gov; h63@in.gov; h64@in.gov; h65@in.gov; h66@in.gov; h67@in.gov; h68@in.gov; h69@in.gov; h70@in.gov; h71@in.gov; h72@in.gov; h73@in.gov; h74@in.gov; h75@in.gov; h76@in.gov; h77@in.gov; h78@in.gov; h79@in.gov; h80@in.gov; h81@in.gov; h82@in.gov; h83@in.gov; h84@in.gov; h85@in.gov; h86@in.gov; h87@in.gov; h88@in.gov; h89@in.gov; h90@in.gov; h91@in.gov; h92@in.gov; h93@in.gov; h94@in.gov; h95@in.gov; h96@in.gov; h97@in.gov; h98@in.gov; h99@in.gov; h100@in.gov

Pictures from Call Center

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:54:15 +0000

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:02:59 +0000

OPPOSE HB 1367!

Sign the Petition!

A big THANK YOU to IAD Conference’s Sponsors!

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:35:19 +0000

Platinum Level Sponsors

Silver Level Sponsor

June 9th Update: Day after the Rally

admin — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:22:23 +0000

Day After Pro-ASL Deaf on Board Rally: June 8, 2011
Ryan Commerson, Community Organizer & Marvin Miller, IAD President

Marvin Miller (MM): Hello! Now, I want to update you all! Yesterday, we were amazed with everyone who came down for the rally [at the Indiana State House]; it was a huge success with plenty of support from everyone who wanted “Equal Representation” on our [ISD] School Board! We couldn’t believe that we had over 300 people who came down for the rally. There were awesome guest speakers, performances by the children and students- from the little cute children to teenagers to adults. It was unbelievable hot outside during the rally, but it didn’t stop us from getting our message across, working together as a huge team! WOW! I was so impressed with everything that happened yesterday! We had guests joining us: Howard Rosenblum (our NAD President), Ryan Commerson (Community Organizer), and David Reynolds who flew in from California for the rally! David used to live in Indiana and was very involved with the Bi-Bi Education Program at ISD! It was all a huge success. We were even surprised that we were able to meet with our Governor’s Chief of Staff! The meeting was a tough one. The Chief of Staff was defiant at everything we had to say by repeating phrases such as: “You have to be patient,” … “You have to give them a chance,” … “You have to accept your new school board members,” … “You have to work with them.” We kept on telling him that we won’t let this happen by responding NO each time. We knew that there’s a clear agenda for what’s happening now! I even asked him if he would give us four new board members who are Deaf. He replied hesitantly by saying, “I will consider [think about] this.” We told him that we don’t accept this answer for thinking about it. He also repeated by saying to give them [new School Board members] chance which we repeatedly told him that it won’t happen. Today, we saw in the Hear Indiana’s newsletter where they announced something like… (looking at Ryan)

Ryan Commerson (RC): It’s time for Deaf Education Now!

MM: When I saw this, I was flabbergasted on this quote! WHAT!! Does that mean they are trying to tell me that ISD Deaf Education was born yesterday?? Didn’t we have Deaf Education for the last few years?? Are they trying to say that ISD is so lousy so there has been NO Deaf Education there?? What are they thinking of?? I’m disgusted with this announcement! So, back to the point… Today, we had a smaller group getting together to go to ISD to meet and ask some questions to our new board member, Scott Rigney before their board retreat today. We want to ask him, in a friendly approach, why he has been refusing to meet with us! You won’t believe this! I’m showing you…

Videoclip of Scott Rigney covering his face upon his entrance at ISD.

MM: Wow, isn’t this unbelievable? So, I would like to grab this opportunity to ask Ryan on his thought on everything that has happened with us up to this point.

RC: First of all, I would like to thank the community for bringing me here. I’m very humbled and honored! Thanks! I was thrilled to see this [the rally]. It is important that for any kind of activitism, we should have goals and expectations set up. This is the most important key for any kind of activitism, is refrain from setting up goals and expectations that is too HIGH to reach. It will then be too hard to reach them; we would likely encounter failures. So, it’s important to set “achievable” goals and expectations so it would be easier to arrive at these goals. Then after arriving at these goals, new goals could be made once again with slighter higher expectations to maintain our motivation to continue achieving them ongoing. Yesterday, our goals include getting the media to come to our rally; they include from newspapers, radio stations, TV news, and others. We had expected to see two to three of them at the rally. NO! It wasn’t what we had expected as it was way over about 8-9 of them! They swarmed all over us during the whole rally! It was indescribable; it was way beyond our expectations! So, our goals were shot up way beyond our expectations!! CHAMP! Even we were surprised that some newspaper decided to reprint their articles in other states newspapers all over the world! This is interesting as we discussed in our framing that we need to target on Governor Daniels who supports eugenics, to the point where some articles focused on making the connection of the rally and Governor Daniels [as proponent of eugenics]! Daniels is a big name in the Republican Party national-wide, so it was just perfect to see this happening! I was thrilled about this! Second thing: I was thrilled when Marvin [along with Kim and Howard] had meeting with Chief of Staff. I know that we had expected this kind of reaction from Chief of Staff where he would be defensive. But it was great to see this reaction in front of our own eyes where he used classic lines such as “Trust Us.” This is a dangerous classic line that should never be used; you shouldn’t trust anyone who says this! Other classic lines were, “Give them a chance,” and “Give them time,” that many previous activists have heard from others in the past! So this is a typical pattern that other activists have heard in the past from the defenders [e.g.: politicians], who tends to have those same classic lines. I interpret this if you see these classic lines, that means that we are on the right track- this is awesome! Yesterday, it was an explosion, exciting, and a great kickoff to this cause! Champs! Today, I knew it would get trickier: because 300 of us were at the rally yesterday, we are now exhausted. Would we expect to have other 300 people again today? No! I know this is not realistic, but that’s fine and understandable. So, we are trying to figure out how to maximize our advantage with a smaller group of people today while trying to make it all equally impacting? We decided to keep it simple: we wanted to focus on getting his [Scott Rigney] reaction as the representative of Hear Indiana, a chapter of the AGB [Alexandar Graham Bell] Association. We decided to pick Scott Rigney as our target for today to get his reaction….

Videoclip of Scott Rigney walking at the front parking lot of Indiana School for the Deaf covering his face.

RC: Wow! So you can see his reaction; that was what we wanted! It gave us a clear message of where he is at in this all. I think that it amounts to 2 for 2 from yesterday and today’s event. These were our main goals that we were able to achieve! It was important to set up this tone that was clear that we gave our message that we are not going anywhere! Does that mean we are done? NO! We just got started! We still have more to go! We need to develop more plans for the next day, week, or months discussing how we will continue to attack our targets until we get what we want! We will continue to discuss plans and will update you from time to time so you will be aware of what’s happening!

MM: Yes! We are getting so much support from all over the country and I want to thank you all for this! Indiana [ISD] community do feel inspired from your ongoing support and it’s a great feeling. But, we do KNOW that it will be a LONG fight but we’re not going to give up! I don’t want you all to feel that it’s end of the world, because we will continue to work together! We will also have FUN; it’s FUN to get together to discuss on ideas! We will continue to get together for meetings where we CAN continue to make this FUN! At the same time, we will make sure that everyone [Board/Governor’s Office] understands us and we will get our message out clearly where they are WRONG and this all must change NOW!

RC: We are already having FUN now! We will not have fun as we are already having FUN now! I really enjoyed myself yesterday all day with lots of inspiring message especially all of those beautiful signing [in ASL, of course] especially from the young 3-4-5 years old kids as it was very touching!

Videoclips and pictures of the rally at the Indiana State House.

RC: This shows everything that we knew all the time; BI-BI [bilingual/bicultural] is the right way. And the principle of activitism is to have a FUN time! We must make it to be FUN! If not, people then would likely lose the motivation to continue on. We need to keep creative at how to make things FUN. Yesterday was FUN, and again this morning, it was lots of FUN! Especially discussing at how we should approach [Scott Rigney]… So…

MM: We will keep going on!… Cheers!… Thank you!

This ASL to English transcript was typed to the best ability by a volunteer. For any clarifications or comments, please contact Kim Bianco Majeri or Marvin Miller.

May 20th: Hold off on Rally date, and other Details

admin — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:33:54 +0000

Transcript #3: May 20, 2011 (Marvin Miller, IAD President)

Marvin Miller (MM): Hello! I would like to grab this opportunity to give you lot of information to update you. But before I go there, I want to let you know that rally was supposed to happen next Thursday. I was contacted by many of you saying this is wrong time for this due to conflicts from parents and communities. After hearing from many of you, we felt that we should hold on this until further notice. We will let you know of the new date. It’s a possible we will have it in two weeks; we will wait and see what happens. Second thing: This Sunday at 5pm at the GIDC (Greater Indianapolis Deaf Club Community) will have community meeting for the deaf communities, signing communities, parents to have a meeting and discuss of our next plans. You are more than welcome to come! Now… Third thing- the updates. Yesterday [two days ago?], we had meeting with Hands and Voices organization. I asked if they would support our demand for 51% deaf on our board along with our three demands. They agreed to bring our request for their support of our three demands to their board. During that time, we gave them some strong feedbacks on their program, “Guided By Your Side” (GBYS). It’s their mentoring program where they visit the parents. We feel that their program especially their materials where they said they’re neutral, aren’t really that neutral. We disagree with it because we feel that the system is being supported by their lengthy information with nothing related to deaf issues there. We don’t think this is fair. We had a good discussion and agreed that we will have more meetings in the future. Overall, it was a good meeting. Now, what’s next is that today we will have a meeting with Peter Miller, who works for the state [of Indiana] budgets. We want to investigate of how EHDI Early Hearing Detection and Interventions operates in the state of Indiana. We feel that there are some conflicts of interests where we don’t want this along with non-representative for the Deaf. So, we will have meeting [with him] at 10:30 am. Fifth thing, is that we have asked the Governor’s office for a meeting several times and we still haven’t heard from his office. We are still working on getting a meeting with four of our new board members along with four of us [Kim, Marvin, Karl and Tami] to get together to have a honest dialogue. The date hasn’t been arranged yet but this should happen soon. Overall, I also want to comment on this that I am very grateful for your wonderful overwhelming supports with all of your advices which is coming to me often! There are many of us involved in this group where we have lots of heated and healthy discussions with plenty of ideas. I am very excited about this and thanks for this! PTCO, IAD, and ISDAA [Indiana School for the Deaf Alumni Association] are involved in our discussions. President of ISDAA is involved by going to meeting and making sure that everything’s running smoothly. We all [PTCO, IAD, and ISDAA] are working in this altogether. Also, you need to contact your legislators, Governor’s office, etc., by mailing letters, or calling them to explain to them that we want to have [our three demands met]. You can go to ISDPTCO.wordpress.com as there are forms letters there that you can use to download, make your changes accordingly and mail to them. Thanks again for your support!

This ASL to English transcript was typed to the best ability by a volunteer. For any clarifications or comments, please contact Kim Bianco Majeri or Marvin Miller.

Monday, May 16: Update on ISD School Board from PTCO/IAD

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:50:42 +0000

Transcript
IADHoosiers: Marvin Miller and Kim Bianco Majeri

Marvin Miller (MM): Hello, I want to take this opportunity to update you on what has been happening lately. Yesterday, we had a [committee] meeting along with several people motivated to help out; there are so many of you who want to do more [to help us]. I am aware of this but we [the committee] had lengthy meeting [discussions]. We also had other meeting with four of us [the representatives] along with the spokesperson and some selected assistants; we then had lots of discussions. Now, I will let Kim [Bianco Majeri], our PTCO President, to share our discussions with you.

Kim Bianco Majeri (KBM): Greetings!! I know that you are very anxious to know more of what we have been discussing. We discussed strategies and visions along with possibility scenarios, both pros and cons. We all agreed on what we will need to do now. We are ready to roll up our sleeves. You can call and/or write letters to your legislatators, including writing letters to our governor’s office [make sure you do this often so they will be swamped with letters] directly addressed to Mitch Daniels, our governor, to notify that his selections [his picks of our three new board members] is wrong [unacceptable]. Explain reasons of why he should 1) remove those three new board members, 2) adding 51% [criteria for having Deaf people on the board], along with 3) change of selection procedure that should be transparent with our consultations and our suggestions. So that, we will post a link on our website on how to find your local legislators. When you write a letter to them, we will have some samples for you to use if you aren’t sure how to write to the legislators. You can read those samples and use it along with your changes along with your language, your stories, and make sure it is up to one page long. After you are done with your letter, you can send it to the governor and carbon copy (cc) to your local legislators. If you want, you can also send it to your local US Senator and US House of Representatives legislators. Please feel free to send out many letters to them, so that we can get our messages to them, instead of them hearing from only few of from us. We need everyone to do this to show that we’re not happy about this [selection of the three new board members].

MM: This information is on website- ISDPTCO.wordpress.com. This information will be posted there soon possibility by tonight or tomorrow morning.

KBM: Now, people are starting to notice that we are on TV as we were on the news with a reporter interviewing us about ISD. Some people wanted to go ahead and contact TV stations, media, and newspapers, etc. We ask you to not to do this due to different people getting involved in this [passing out different messages]. We have assigned Brian Bippus to be our media coordinator; everything needs to go through him and he will contact the media. If you know someone related to media, please give contact information to Brian Bippus so he can contact them to make sure they get right information from us from right people. If you know of any contacts in the media, get in touch with Brian. He will the share the information consistently, or talk to the correct people. The information shared to and by the media would then be consistent [with our messages].

MM: Yes, and also this is very important when you are on Facebook, Internet, or any networking sites making comments, try not to express your frustrations using inappropriate languages. You just can make your comments known by making valid points, as long as it’s strong and supportive, this would then be acceptable with clear positions. Why did I mention this is because the media can check those out and use your comments from different sites [Facebook, etc.]. This concerns me. I want to be clear on this; we have talking points where you can copy from if you want [when making comments] and use them with your own words. Now, I’ll pass on to Kim.

KBM: Also, if you want to vent out your frustrations, we have decided to set up a hotline where you can call a VP [videophone] number to record your frustration to get this off your chest. You could call and click “record” and you can then share your stories, backgrounds, experiences, frustrations or your success stories, and they can be positive or negative. Then we will [observe those recorded calls] and if we find some of them to be so good [strong impact], we might contact that person to talk for us to the media. The phone number is 317-520-3223 to do this. It will be posted on the website too.

MM: Lots of thanks for your great support! We both of us are gratuitously overwhelmed with your wonderful support. Amazingly, it’s not only from Indiana, we are getting lots of nation-wide supports also! We are aware that everyone’s watching us [from out of state] and we are aware that you would like to know what’s happening every minute, but we promise to communicate with you on a regular basis.

KBM: Also, we are still waiting to hear from the Governor’s office about having four of us [spokesperson: Kim, Marvin, Karl, and Tami] and the four new board members to schedule a meeting together. It hasn’t been scheduled yet, due to some scheduling conflicts [for those people involved], but we are still working on this. Also, Marvin and I will be contacting Governor Daniels to request for a meeting with him to explain of our concerns [the selection of our new school board members along with our three demands] to him personally. We will wait and see if he will accept to meet with us.

MM: There will be more updates ahead. We are still working on our long list of issues, but we will keep you updated! Thanks for watching!

This ASL to English transcript was typed to the best ability by a volunteer. For any clarifications or comments, please contact Kim Bianco Majeri or Marvin Miller.

Friday, May 13: Update After Meeting with Scott Jenkins of Governor’s Office

admin — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:48:57 +0000

Transcript for Marvin Miller & Kim Bianco Majeri: May 13th, 2011

“After Our Meeting With Scott Jenkins in Governor’s Office”

Marvin Miller (MM): Hello, I just arrived from Governor’s office after meeting with Scott Jenkins and we had lengthy discussions. Now, I would like to introduce you to Kim Bianco Majeri, PTCO President who wants to share information with you of what just happened from this meeting.

Kim Bianco Majeri (KBM): Thanks! Four of us met with Scott Jenkins who is the Senior Advisor for the Governor on Policy on Education. Four of us, Kim, Marvin, Tami Hossler parents of a Deaf child who graduated from ISD, and Karl Zachmann, parent of two students at ISD. Both Tami and Karl are hearing. We talked with Scott Jenkins and that meeting took total of 2 hours! The meeting was very much educational about different issues and educational issues on our concerns and our reasons on why we are objecting the selection of three new board members. We asked him on the process of making the selection [of three new board members]. It appears that there was no formal procedure for selection board members. Candidates were reviewed using their resumes; those names picked were then submitted to the governor’s office. Their argument is that the issue is in Deaf school has 300 students who uses ASL out of 2,400 students in the state of Indiana. Thus, three new board members represents 2,400 students and one board member represent 300 students at ISD so this is wholly justified. We had to explain that is not acceptable. Two out of three board members has strong attitude intending to deface ASL [American Sign Language] and has strong ties with AGB [Alexander Graham Bell Association]. We had to explain the history [the relationship of ASL and AGB] up to this point, and that selection of the three new board members is not acceptable. During this time, Scott Jenkins remained adamant with his decision. We realized we had to discuss and educate him by explaining many different stories and research-based information related to education [for the deaf children]. As we were educating him, he listened intently and asked us questions, as if he is opening his mind. However, he feels he needs to remain with his original decision. We assume that he doesn’t want to be embarrassed with the decision that he already made. So we needed to continue educating him further. But one good thing is that he asked to meet us with the three new board members, but we asked to include Ann Reifel [new and only deaf board member], who is ISD alumni, so we would be meeting four new board members all at once. So us the four representations will be meeting with the four new board members along with Dr. David Geeslin [ISD Superintendent] and Scott Jensen who is the President of ISD School Board. The purpose of this meeting would be to discuss individual’s agendas, their philosophies, their visions, and their purpose of being on the Board. During this time, we will bring up our concerns. This is the first step. Despite this, we already informed the Governor’s office that we still don’t accept the three board members, but we will still meet with the board members to listen to them. The Governor’s office asked us to be open-minded as they wanted to start a dialogue on this matter and we agreed with them [to have the meeting]. Then we asked Mr. Jenkins that if we do not agree with the outcomes of this meeting, would he also be open-minded too. He responded in the affirmative. We [the representatives] would now need to develop our next strategies.

MM: We also discussed with them about how the process of when a Deaf child was identified when newly born as Deaf [or having hearing loss] has difficulty being admitted to Deaf schools, usually because there are systems blocking them from receiving appropriate services. We gave them the real picture of what is happening. He [Mr. Jenkins] listened intently and agrees to work with both of us. They will arrange to have meeting with us along with DOH [Department of Health], EHDI [Early Hearing Detection & Intervention] and Department of Education to resolve this issues and to make sure all parents has full access to fair and appropriate information [for their deaf/hard of hearing child]. We are willing to do this. But when we were discussing with Mr. Jenkins about having meeting with the new board members I did mention that I didn’t agree with the idea. The three board members are not going to change their minds; with their agendas. I couldn’t trust them after 140 years of history of oppression that is extremely traumatic. I am reluctant to this idea of the meeting but after we [Kim and I] discussed about it and went ahead into agreeing to meet with the new board members. We will see how it all go but we will be strong with our three demands: 1) Resignation of three new board members; 2) 51% majority of Deaf board members; and 3) the board members must be Deaf-centered, understand and value Deaf culture, and support the language of ASL.

KBM: Also, they [Governor’s office] seems to be willing to monitor the new board members and ask us for our input help them with modifying the board selection procedures and to make sure it’s is fair and transparent. After I said this, Mr. Jenkins acknowledged affirmatively and made note of this into his notepad. So….

MM: Both of us felt that while the meeting [with Mr. Jenkins] was an emotional meeting, where we had some verbal clashes, but all in all, we wished that in the past, we had been actively involved with politics. We need to be more actively in this political process to have a better relationship with the governor’s office. With better relationship with them, it will pay off! Thanks!

KBM: To be continued….

MM: Yes! We will keep you informed. We are not finished today! More news coming up! Thanks!

This ASL to English transcript was typed to the best ability by a volunteer. For any clarifications or comments, please contact Kim Bianco Majeri or Marvin Miller.

Indiana Association of the Deaf » admin

URGENT REGARDING HB 1367

WE NEED YOUR HELP…

Contact your Senator!!

URGENT – URGENT – URGENT OPPOSE HB 1367 TODAY!!

URGENT – URGENT – URGENT OPPOSE HB 1367 TODAY!! CALL AND EMAIL

Pictures from Call Center

OPPOSE HB 1367!

Sign the Petition!

A big THANK YOU to IAD Conference’s Sponsors!

June 9th Update: Day after the Rally

May 20th: Hold off on Rally date, and other Details

Monday, May 16: Update on ISD School Board from PTCO/IAD

Friday, May 13: Update After Meeting with Scott Jenkins of Governor’s Office

URGENT – URGENT – URGENT OPPOSE HB 1367 TODAY!!
CALL AND EMAIL