Ian has been getting on a school bus since he was 18 months old, since he started deaf education with the texas school for the deaf and now with the deaf ed program run by AISD. I've been getting up with him, usually around 6:45, dressing him, and putting him on the bus every week day for about a year and half (he only went 3/days a week for about half the summer). What I have learned about Ian from these mornings is that he is a person who wakes up in a good mood. This morning he was literally jumping around when he saw the school bus. When he gets on the bus, he waves and waves and says "bye". I'm sure he's had a bad morning at some point, but my predominant memory is him being very happy to be getting up and getting to school.
Last week we visited Live Oak elementary in Round Rock, which is where we've decided to send Ian for preschool and K-6. They are the region 13 magnet for public deaf education, and have about 50 kids with cochlear implants, hearing aids, or other auditory issues enrolled. It is a normal school, in that the classrooms are mostly non-deaf students, and they aggressively mainstream the deaf students with their normal hearing peers. The philosophy of the school is that deaf ed students are just regular kids, who should be in the classroom with the other kids, and that the expectations of their academic, social, and emotional development are no different than anybody else, and that the best way to get there is for the deaf ed kids to be with peers. They have a deaf ed teacher in every room that has a deaf student to support, so basically every classroom has an extra teacher, and all of the deaf ed kids get separate class time for language arts which they do in a small group to focus on listening and speech skills. Live Oak also has both a total communication program (sign and speech) as well as auditory-oral, so they have great flexibility in addressing the student with whatever method works best for that particular student. Ian is auditory-oral at this point. The classes that have sign are mostly hearing students with a full-time interpreter providing all the visual communication for the deaf kids in the room. The teachers we met typically had about a decade of experience in the classroom working with deaf ed kiddos.
I have visited the Austin program that Ian has been attending, and there isn't anything wrong with it, but the Live Oak program has more resources than any school in AISD, and has such a pro-active orientation towards mainstreaming that is stands out. Most public education treats deaf ed more like special ed, and does not have the expectation that the deaf ed students are at their peer level in academics and other skills. Basically the deaf kids are allowed to be "behind". AISD does mainstream, but lacks the resources to put a deaf ed teacher in the classroom for K-6 - either you are in the deaf ed program, or your mainstreamed, and there is not an "in-between" place where the kids can be in a normal setting and get the extra support they might need due to deafness.
I was surprised by how emotionally moved I was by the visit to Live Oak. I just felt like sobbing while we were there; seeing how great a program it is and how it is so well designed around the needs of the deaf students. Say what you will about public education, the program director and teachers I met love these kids and are doing something extraordinary to move them forward. There are parents that have moved from other states to get their kids to this particular school, so there is something special going on up in Round Rock.
So we're moving to Round Rock ISD as soon as we can - pulling up stakes from Austin and heading north-ish, most likely to the Milwood area so we can get Ian to where I think he'll do best. Craig will go to Live Oak as well, they will do an in-district transfer to keep siblings together and that makes me very happy as well.
J
