3. Eliminate Vacant Positions
This recommendation eliminates the following vacant positions: five at
Western North Carolina School for the Deaf; 11 at Eastern North Carolina
School for the Deaf; 14 at Governor Morehead School for the Blind; and two atthe Governor Morehead Preschool (GMS). Of these positions, eight have beenvacant for six to 12 months, and 19 have been vacant for more than a year.Enrollment at residential schools has declined in recent years, from a total of311 students in 2006-07 to 265 in the current school year. At GMS preschool,669 children and families were served in 2006-07 compared to 657 in thecurrent year. Overall children and families served have declined approximately5.9% since 2007. Eliminating these vacant positions reduces overall staff at theschools and preschool by 5.6%.

Rebuttal: The Office of Education Services (OES) put a cap on the limit of students entering the residential schools for the deaf. Many LEAs would not allow many deaf children to go to the schools for the deaf. If these were stopped, I believe the numbers will go up drastically.

There are a few deaf people who can handle public school without any problem. There are a few who can do ok with the help of interpreters. However, during recess, or lunch, or going home on the bus these students are all alone. If a student can make it in public school it should be his/her choice, not someone sitting in an office hundreds of miles away.

I realize most hearing people do not understand this. Therefore, I suggest each of you (hearing) go to China for a week without an interpreter. Go to meetings, visit their schools, see how much you understand.

I suggest keeping the Deaf school in Morganton open. At the same time close Gov Morehead and move Gov Morehead students students to Wilson for five years. After five years revisit this situation. Keep in mind, Morganton is where it all started. It is a much loved school. It would be a terrible mistake to close the Morganton School.

It is very sad that hearing people make decisions that have a life long affect on the deaf community without knowing what they are doing. The only thing some people know is money. Once they cut the budget and close schools the damage has been done.

Unfortunately, those that make such a decision pat themselves on the back, for a job well done, then give themselves a hefty pay increase, or at least a bonus. All at the expense of those with disabilities.

Charles R. Howell

Please look up page 181 to 202.

http://www.governor.state.nc.us/library/pdf/budgetFiles/Book3-HealthHumanServices-web.pdf

Yeah patronizing is not the way to go. Especially when we have been looked down for many generations to come along and that we cannot be ourselves.

I’m not quite sure if we patronize people who support AGB or oralism or whatever, we have and still are oppressed. So how can we be patronizing them? It doesnt quite make any sense.

It is like telling black people not to patronize white people especially back in the days when they forbade black people from going to white restrooms or bus or whatever. Everything had to be segrerated. Black people were told to respect white men and to obey the laws. Of course, I can imagine how hard it was for them to feel anger, humilation and despair for being treated like this. MLK and his group aimed for the government to make changes to improve lives for the black population. This was successful, although it must have been a very painful and time consuming thing for them.

I left my comment in dvtv but you requested to leave AGB’s quote about signs…

Derived from Forbidden Signs by Douglas Baynton, on page 55:

“‘Speech had become the greatest of all objects,’ as Alexander Graham Bell expressed it; to ‘ask the value of speech’, he believed, ‘is like asking the value of life.’ The value of speech was, for the oralists, akin to the value of being human. To be human was to speak. to sign was to step downward in the scale of being.”

For more than a century, AGB and his cronies have done nothing but to patronize ASL and Deaf people who use it. It is not too long ago that the very same organization wrote a statement that those who “use ASL only is socially isolated from the rest of society.” in a letter to Pepsi. If that is not called patronizing then I would not know what else can it possibly be.

DBC had showed up to deliver a message, “Let all Deaf children sign.” in the rally. There were no statements in the rally to patronize them. There is no exclusion in language of DBC’s part as opposed to AVT/ABG that excludes ASL and underestimates the value of the language that would have greatly benefit literacy and even speech. If you don’t call that patronizing, again I would not know what else to call it!

Loved the quotes you selected from Thomas Paine

I have long wished we could appeal to the “better angels of our nature” (Abraham Lincoln)

Be well, stay strong, seek true peace (the presence of justice)

Don’t give up. We shall overcome.

Peace

Patti

Thank you for making this dialogue possible. I wanted to point something out. It is also an opportunity for you and others to open yours/theirs point of views and seek answers from us as well. Please realize this because it’s extremely important. My hope is that you are not viewing us as the only party that is trying to open our point of views and seek answers from you and your side. I hope to see equal efforts coming from the other side as well because It takes two to tango together.

Thanks again for an excellent v/blog.