[EDLING:1742] Sign-language students treated unfairly

[Francis M. Hult]

Star-Gazette

Opinion

Sign-language students treated unfairly
District failed to provide convincing support for decision. 
July 30, 2006

As a parent of a Broadway Middle School student who has studied American Sign 
Language - ASL - for three years and had fully intended to pursue ASL in high 
school to be used as a Language Other Than English so she could receive an 
Advanced Designation Regents Diploma, I would like to refute the information 
contained in a "fact sheet" that the Elmira school district prepared and 
distributed.

At this point it should be noted that the eighth-grade students at Broadway 
were told in an ASL class just before spring break that they must right then 
and there pick another language, French or Spanish, because they couldn't take 
ASL as they had planned.

We parents were never informed. On May 3, several students and parents spoke 
at a public hearing for the school district's 2006-07 budget that was to be 
voted on May 16. No microphone was made available. It was evident that the 
school board members had made up their minds to drop ASL instruction.

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