Re: Re: Re: My health class interpreter....
Originally posted by DefMATRIXense
fire her over this? you gotta be kidding me... is it not allowing or what?
SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER FIRED
Students could not understand her, Mountain Lakes principal says
By Joseph McLaughlin
Daily Record
MOUNTAIN LAKES ,NJ
The board of education voted 10-0 to fire embattled sign language interpreter Janice Nierstedt last night, at a meeting that drew 120 people to the high school auditorium.The firing was effective immediately.
The 31-year-old had interpreted class lectures and athletic instructions at Mountain Lakes High School for two years. She had been suspended since Oct. 19, when school officials accused her of purposely making it difficult for students to understand teachers instructions and criticized her professional behavior. Fractures that formed in the district after Nierstedt received her suspension separated last night's crowd into two camps.
About 85 parents and faculty members from the Lake Drive School for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children donned blue ribbons and clustered on the right side of the auditorium to signify their support for the administration.
On the opposite side, Nierstedt sat silently with family members and a handful of friends, students, and sign language professionals.School officials reiterated the charges against the interpreter before taking the vote. "On a couple of occasions, interpretation was provided to students in a manner that they could not comprehend," said Lake Drive Principal Laura McKirdy. "The students were able to understand everybody else except the interpreter in question." But Nierstedt said she is being blamed for an ineffective district policy that forces interpreters to use a bastardized form of sign language that some students find difficult to understand. "I was never notified of any personnel issues that's not why I'm being terminated," Nierstedt said after the vote.
According to the interpreter, a majority of the high school's 45 deaf students communicate through American Sign Language a completely visual language that has its own grammar and syntax. In an attempt to help deaf and hard of hearing students learn to read and write English, interpreters at the high school are instructed to use the
signs of American Sign Language, but with the grammar and syntax of English. "The (students) didn't understand the Signed English (school administrators) were asking me to use," Nierstedt said. "There were no kids who couldn't understand ASL."
School officials say the Signed English, or "simultaneous communication" approach, is effective and used frequently in deaf education. "The kids are always hearing voice at the same time as they*re getting a visual representation of the language," McKirdy said. "We know our system works based on our test results."
The principal said simultaneous communication has been used for more than 20 years in the Lake Drive School, which attracts deaf and hard of hearing students from all over the state, a claim Nierstedt also disputes."There was a policy change we were informed on the first day of school (this year)," Nierstedt said. During the meeting's public comment portion, members of the blue ribbon contingent praised Mountain Lakes* program for deaf and hard of hearing
students and supported its English-based approach.
"My daughter is going to be a student in a hearing world. Her skills are excellent," said Maria Romano, whose daughter, Karen, is hearing impaired. "With the letters from some of her friends (who use only ASL) it's so hard to follow a thought or a thought pattern." Some faculty members criticized the interpreter*s professionalism, citing
examples when she would not speak to them or told them to address her in writing only.
"I've said all along that everyone here needs to behave in an absolutely professional manner," McKirdy said, "and she did not do so consistently." The deaf-school principal cites last month's board meeting as an example, contending that Nierstedt rallied about 20 deaf and hard of hearing students to speak on her behalf because she told them misinformation.
As for her future, Nierstedt said she would continue to work in the deaf community.
JOSEPH McLAUGHLIN can be reached at (973) 428-6627.
http://www.rockrock.com/talk4deaf/deaf_issues.html
