Outraged Parents Blasted St Mary Board of Trustees
Parents of students at St. Mary’s School for the Deaf unleashed a host of complaints to several members of the board of trustees Wednesday night at a meeting that ended with many parents outraged and students vowing to continue to protest.
Parents complained about the midyear transfer of secondary English teacher Beth Williams — described by many as one of the best teachers at the school — to the elementary division. They wanted to know why the teachers replacing Williams and Brewer are not certified and proficient in sign language.
“It’s this underlying issue of fear, intimidation and harassment that needs to be addressed,” said retired teacher Catherine Kibler.
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, board members met with a group of students who aired their concerns — chief among them Brewer’s dismissal. Then, at 4:30 p.m., the board’s executive and personnel committees held a joint meeting, at which the consensus was that Brewer’s situation did not need to be revisited, DePaolo said.
Parents were outraged. “So the decision was made about Nettie before we even came here?” one man shouted. “Nettie is gone,” DePaolo said.
Students said they will attend all their classes — except math. They will continue to wear yellow armbands in protest. Students want Brewer reinstated. And if she’s not, they want to be taught by a certified math teacher who can sign proficiently.
Parents said they fully support their children and believe their demands are reasonable. To read the full article, click The Buffalo News: Buffalo/Erie County: Parents berate St. Mary’s board with their outrage
Commentary: The tensions arise as the BoT remains unresponsive to the concerns of the parents, definitely not a good sign. It makes one wonder what is going on within the BoT if they ignore the grievances of the stakeholders, especially with legitimate complaints about firing of qualified teachers with excellent competency in ASL and replacing them with those showing poor proficiency in ASL. Something isn’t kosher here.
The parents are fully supportive of their students protesting for better education and ASL. I hope whoever is responsible for the financing of this deaf school will investigate this further. For sure, this conflict is getting heavy media coverage, which makes the behavior of BoT more puzzling as normally people would take swift corrective actions to minimize the negative attention to their organization by the media. Here is the link to BoT http://www.smsdk12.org/trustees.htm How many of the members are Deaf or knowledgeable of Deaf education?
From my own personal experience with failing agencies and also from covering the protests and school conflicts, a common theme found is a board of trustees lacking in adhering to their responsibilities. Either they surrender their reins to the administrators, giving them too much leeway in operating the schools without any accountability or are guilty of conflicts of interests by possessing personal relationships with the administrators, preventing them from carrying out their fiduciary duties. In fact, if the BoT isn’t mindful of their duties, chances are high that the institution is dysfunctional.
By the way, someone recently criticized the protest, concerned that the students haven’t learned how to work the system. I think this commenter doesn’t get the point. The students have already worked the system, only to be faced with no constructive dialogue and paternalism, which appears to be too pervasive in the deaf residential schools. This is known as the plantation mentality coined by Dr Allen Sussman during Deaf President Now movement. MZ
P.S. For the parents, if they want to contact the NY State of Special Education financing this school to object to the indifference of the BoT to their and their children’s grievances of poor education and ineptness in ASL among some teachers.
Special Education Quality Assurance
email contact: mishkazena@aol.com
Parents of students at St. Mary’s School for the Deaf unleashed a host of complaints to several members of the board of trustees Wednesday night at a meeting that ended with many parents outraged and students vowing to continue to protest.
Parents complained about the midyear transfer of secondary English teacher Beth Williams — described by many as one of the best teachers at the school — to the elementary division. They wanted to know why the teachers replacing Williams and Brewer are not certified and proficient in sign language.
“It’s this underlying issue of fear, intimidation and harassment that needs to be addressed,” said retired teacher Catherine Kibler.
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, board members met with a group of students who aired their concerns — chief among them Brewer’s dismissal. Then, at 4:30 p.m., the board’s executive and personnel committees held a joint meeting, at which the consensus was that Brewer’s situation did not need to be revisited, DePaolo said.
Parents were outraged. “So the decision was made about Nettie before we even came here?” one man shouted. “Nettie is gone,” DePaolo said.
Students said they will attend all their classes — except math. They will continue to wear yellow armbands in protest. Students want Brewer reinstated. And if she’s not, they want to be taught by a certified math teacher who can sign proficiently.
Parents said they fully support their children and believe their demands are reasonable. To read the full article, click The Buffalo News: Buffalo/Erie County: Parents berate St. Mary’s board with their outrage
Commentary: The tensions arise as the BoT remains unresponsive to the concerns of the parents, definitely not a good sign. It makes one wonder what is going on within the BoT if they ignore the grievances of the stakeholders, especially with legitimate complaints about firing of qualified teachers with excellent competency in ASL and replacing them with those showing poor proficiency in ASL. Something isn’t kosher here.
The parents are fully supportive of their students protesting for better education and ASL. I hope whoever is responsible for the financing of this deaf school will investigate this further. For sure, this conflict is getting heavy media coverage, which makes the behavior of BoT more puzzling as normally people would take swift corrective actions to minimize the negative attention to their organization by the media. Here is the link to BoT http://www.smsdk12.org/trustees.htm How many of the members are Deaf or knowledgeable of Deaf education?
From my own personal experience with failing agencies and also from covering the protests and school conflicts, a common theme found is a board of trustees lacking in adhering to their responsibilities. Either they surrender their reins to the administrators, giving them too much leeway in operating the schools without any accountability or are guilty of conflicts of interests by possessing personal relationships with the administrators, preventing them from carrying out their fiduciary duties. In fact, if the BoT isn’t mindful of their duties, chances are high that the institution is dysfunctional.
By the way, someone recently criticized the protest, concerned that the students haven’t learned how to work the system. I think this commenter doesn’t get the point. The students have already worked the system, only to be faced with no constructive dialogue and paternalism, which appears to be too pervasive in the deaf residential schools. This is known as the plantation mentality coined by Dr Allen Sussman during Deaf President Now movement. MZ
P.S. For the parents, if they want to contact the NY State of Special Education financing this school to object to the indifference of the BoT to their and their children’s grievances of poor education and ineptness in ASL among some teachers.
Special Education Quality Assurance
email contact: mishkazena@aol.com
March 13th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I wonder what happen to your would-be WVSD report about the full conversion of the WVSD from the deaf school to the oral-like school setting?
Have you spoken to anybody deaf within the WVSD employee directory?
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
RLMDEAF blog
March 13th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Great Story, Mishka! This story inspires me so highly!! I am so proud of parents and students for actions! I am so exciting and watch the media coverage real soon! It seems to me that students including parents weaken those who dismissed 2 people that are experts at teaching even though the system doesn’t realize how important it is to students that look up to!! I am so speechless but a big smile for them and you! huggyangel
March 13th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I didn’t have a chance yet. I hope to soon.
Huggy, this is the second school protest within two weeks. More students are empowered and demand for better education and communication, after being ignored and oppressed over the decades.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
There might more than two protests for 2008! Now I heard that many people in Arizona not happy with ASDB/PDSD!
http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm?id=8406