Washington schools need more deaf educators

Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a deaf student could sue his Michigan school system — under the Americans with Disabilities Act — for providing inadequate services.

The family of Miguel Luna Perez says his constitutional rights were violated because he was provided an ASL aide who did not, in fact, know American Sign Language.

Nationwide, there’s a shortage of qualified deaf education teachers for public schools, including here in Washington state.

When a student who is deaf or hard of hearing needs special education services in Washington public schools, they obtain a document called an individualized education plan (IEP). Schools are required to meet the needs of students as outlined in their IEP.

But fulfilling those requirements isn't always a straightforward task.

As Vanessa Ontiveros reports in the Yakima Herald-Republic, rural school districts like Yakima are struggling to recruit new deaf education teachers, an issue that puts a strain on students, parents, and teachers. If a district can't provide adequate resources, students are often bussed to other districts or are taught through a contractor.

That's a tough job in Washington state, which doesn't have an official deaf education training program. Prospective teachers typically have a masters-level degree in deaf education and need to also receive a credential from the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB).

"In my understanding, one of the reasons why many of our in-state institutions have not offered a deaf education or have not sought to offer deaf education as an endorsement is because there's already a regional leader," said Michael Nguyen, the program manager of educator credentialing and development for the PESB.

That leader is Portland State University, and the Washington State School for the Deaf is located in nearby Vancouver for its proximity to this program. But asking students and their families to relocate to Vancouver for their education is a barrier to many.

Nguyen says there's a broader issue of teacher retention in special education in Washington's schools. That requires the PESB to be flexible, sometimes issuing emergency or conditional substitute certifications to address immediate or situational needs.

But in general, the PESB has the difficult job of balancing the high demand for deaf education teachers while also maintaining a high quality of services.

"The deaf community is probably advocating for stronger standards because of what they're seeing, HR folks might be advocating the other way, [saying] 'Hey, we can't find anybody,'" Nguyen said.

"Our job as staff is to put together as much information as we can, do the research around the numbers, share the stories, and then present to our board, who makes the final decision around whether to change endorsement standards or not."

The shortage of deaf educators is something Taralynn Petrites is trying to change. Petrites is the Deaf and Sign Language Studies coordinator at Central Washington University, which has the state's first deaf studies program — a foundational degree program that does not yet offer a full-fledged deaf education program.

Soundside spoke with Petrites about CWU's deaf studies program and what more needs to be done to bolster the pipeline of deaf education instructors in Washington. Tiffany Ramseyer provided ASL interpretation services for the interview.

This is an edited transcript of Soundside's interview with Taralynn Petrites on Friday, March 31, 2023.

What does a school designed for deaf students provide?

Really, a general response is obvious that a deaf school has more exposure. They're more visually oriented. They have school sports that incorporate sign language and everything is ready to go and place. That's an obvious difference. Whereas a mainstream school system provides less exposure to ASL, the opportunities are more limited.

Possibly, their only friend is the interpreter; that can happen in a mainstream school. The quality of education, I say often, is dependent on the teacher themselves — if the teacher knows how to work with deaf children, clearly establish communication, and read along with deaf and hard-of-hearing children using sign language in the classroom. Plus writing, and how to compare comparative analytic skills between English and ASL simultaneously — that will have a successful educational result.

If that teacher is not qualified, perhaps they don't use sign language, or they don't have the appropriate training, or the mainstream school itself doesn't have qualified staff — really it is important to have both, to offer a strong foundation for success. And we're still struggling with that today. This is an old, old discussion that's been going on for quite some time, unfortunately.

What's your perspective on the shortage of deaf education specialists? What do you see in classrooms, and how it affects kids?

Really, I understand the struggle that rural areas face. Larger, more urban areas, they have more resources. That's understandable. However, when that happens, the school should be better supported and aware of how the child will benefit. And in doing so, they would have to hire qualified teachers of the deaf, they have to hire a qualified teacher of the deaf for that specific student, which means intensive training.

Oftentimes a B.A. degree isn't enough. Sometimes people send me an email here at the university and they say, ‘Can I get deaf endorsements so I can teach deaf children?’ No, that's not how it works. That requires a master's degree plus ASL skills. One year of ASL classes does not provide the qualifications needed for a teacher of the deaf. Some people work hard, the parents work hard, but oftentimes, it's better to send them to the school in Vancouver, which is the Washington School for the Deaf, and they can get more support there and more resources. And I understand it can be difficult, but that can provide a crucial difference.

The other option would be if there are no qualified teachers of the deaf in that area. Oftentimes, they won't have qualified interpreters as well to offer the support services needed in that classroom. Again, this is a challenge that we face as well.

That leads me to one of my other questions. You mostly answered it. But what does it take to become a deaf educator in a K-12 school? How much work and training goes into that?

Really, typically, it requires a master's degree at minimum. So a master's degree in deaf studies, special education, depending on what the university offers, what they call the degree, but really, that individual should have a strong foundation in American Sign Language.

And they should understand that because, when they sit side by side with a deaf child, and they read to that deaf child, most people don't understand that deaf adults have a third- to fourth-grade reading average. So when they're sitting beside a deaf student, and they are teaching this deaf student how to use ASL, that's a visual language and they're using that as a support in order to teach English. Oftentimes, the teachers of the deaf do not have enough training in ASL. So they're teaching English in English. And that's just, that's impossible. I've seen this going on in the same system. And this is going on for decades, and it remains unaddressed.

Really, the reason why they're having such a difficult time teaching deaf children literacy is because the teachers of the deaf don't sign fluently themselves to begin with. So that is difficult. Really, We need to have more people involved, especially in the school districts who understand what a teacher of the deaf looks like, what a qualified teacher means, not a bare minimum with a B.A. degree and a national board certificate. That's not enough. Some school systems are successful with one teacher of the deaf and one ASL specialist. Some teachers will provide instruction until they have difficulty and then pull an ASL specialist in to provide assistance in ASL.

The consequences of not having qualified teachers, I'm hearing you say that this is, students get left behind. And it must be very frustrating for you to see this happen.

I know you've been working to change that through trying to grow the training program that you oversee at Central Washington University. It has the only Deaf Studies program in the state.

Can you tell me about that curriculum and what it means to have not just the American Sign Language Program, but also the Deaf Studies program?

OK, the Deaf and Sign Language Studies program at CWU focuses on the foundations of American Sign Language, not directly to employment, though. This isn’t a degree that offers you a path directly to employment, it's a foundational degree. If somebody wants to get into linguistics more, or we also study issues of the deaf community, you get exposed to what the differences between minimum requirements and what qualifications actually look like.

After a four-year degree, the students are able to decide whether or not they want to pursue studies as an interpreter, or as an ASL teacher, or as a teacher of the deaf, depending on what they would like to do with their foundational bachelor's. Many universities rush their students along once they get a BA — that's not enough. You need five to seven years post-grad in order to be truly qualified.

I'm trying to lay a foundation first for these students. And once we build that foundation, they can go along, some students have gone on to other universities, for master's degrees in deafness-related fields. Those students feel that the program offers a strong foundation for them.

And to be clear, it's not a direct employment program. As you said, for example, Washington state currently does not have any in-state deaf educator training programs, right?

That is correct.

What do universities like Central Washington University, that has this foundational program, need in order to start helping with the pipeline issue of getting more deaf educators in the classroom?

What these universities need to do is they need to start offering master's degrees in deaf and sign language studies. Many universities offer bachelor's degrees but they omit the linguistic focus; I offer more of a linguistic focus.

When I lived in Arizona, I taught at a charter school for K-12 students. The primary language used in the school was ASL, but we did have deaf and hearing standards. It was a bilingual approach. And I could see what was important there. Now going back to the point of what my vision is, is to set this foundation while many colleges and universities tried to do the same thing.

What we're doing here is, one of the universities in Washington state contacted me and said that the university is offering hands-on classes. Yes, that's fine. But that doesn't really support the idea of attaining a BA degree. They felt it wasn't necessary, but honestly, it is necessary.

What I want to see is, more universities that offer a BA degree in ASL. Plus, later on, expand that into interpreting because really we have two things I'm talking about here. First of all, is the requirement of a master's degree for teachers of the deaf who have Strong ASL skills. And a BA degree, which is still a four-year program that focuses on ASL skills and generalized training. But two years to train interpreters is not enough. Many educational interpreters of many students are suffering because of the lack of quality educational interpreters. That's why it's very crucial that we don't rush the process.

You recently put together a grant proposal for the Washington state Legislature that would have allocated $200,000 for an interpreter program. And it would have given free interpreter training to prospective students with the requirement that graduates stay in Washington for at least two years.

Ultimately, that fell through — why didn't the Legislature buy into this? And do you have plans to try to reintroduce this?

Yes, I want to and I need to work with a team of people. At that time, we went into lockdown from Covid. So everything got turned down at that time. I was really surprised. But with the community throughout Washington state and their support, I would be more than happy to re-introduce that same proposal. Yes, I really do hope we could still make that happen.

We were talking about interpreting services there and interpreting degrees. But what about your hopes for the future of getting deaf education specialists into more classrooms in Washington?

Do you have anything that you see on the horizon that could help or any policies that you think legislators should really look at?

Really, my vision is that every school district should have a requirement to reach out to a particular agency that is a consultant throughout the hiring process. That agency has a working knowledge of what a qualified teacher of the deaf looks like, so they can be present in that school district, they can help them develop a job description, they can help them figure out what a qualified teacher truly is. Many school districts have no idea what a qualified teacher or a qualified interpreter looks like. So they're just randomly bringing these individuals in.

I'm hoping that soon, something happens, because unfortunately, many of these individuals still have jobs today, both as teachers and interpreters. But they're under-qualified, yet because of the union protections that they have, the students are suffering, and they continue to suffer. All of the school districts need to have one central location to reach out to, and that's where they can get the help that they need to improve the services they provide.

A student in Michigan recently sued his public school for failing to provide quality deaf education and one major court ruling the aide in this case that he was assigned, did not know sign language. And it's thought that this case could really open the door for more students who are deaf or hard of hearing to take legal action against their school districts, if they don't provide quality deaf education.

Do you think that this could potentially push districts to take action and take this issue more seriously?

It's a systemic issue, really, from the top down. I've gone to many school districts and seen teachers and wondered how those teachers got those jobs. And still that goes on today. We have to start at the top of the system and start passing requirements and then the schools need to enforce those requirements. That's where the solution lies, is the schools have to understand that they have no choice but to follow the requirements.

A lot of times it depends on individual school districts; some are not doing what needs to be done. And so the result is inconsistency throughout the state, which is why people move to different school districts to get an education, because the parents get sick of fighting, and they move to another school district. So obviously, more enforcement needs to happen from the top down for more standardization across the state.

Is there anything you want to add for our audience about the issue of the shortage of educators who are qualified, and the future of deaf education in Washington state?

We need more support from the community. Everyone throughout Washington state needs to speak to their Legislature. They need to speak to their local universities to set up B.A. programs and master's programs in education and sign language. Washington state really needs to do this bad.

This Deaf and Sign Language Studies program here that was just established in 2020, we are very new at CWU and we still need more community support. I'm shocked by how low the expectations are in Washington state for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and the community. It shocks me compared to what I've seen in other states. So I am asking please, that the community roll up its sleeves and get involved and let's make something happen here in Washington state.