OUR SCHOOLS • HAWAII CENTER FOR THE DEAF AND BLIND
Full complement of qualified teachers a sign of hope

By Kalani Wilhelm
Advertiser Staff Writer

For the first time in at least a decade, the Hawaii Center for the Deaf and the Blind — a public school — will have a qualified teacher in every classroom this year.

Anna Starks, one of three new teachers at the Hawaii Center for the Deaf and Blind, sets up her classroom. For the first time in a decade, all 14 of the school's positions are filled with qualified teachers. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"It's very surprising. This has never happened."

The Hawaii Center for the Deaf and the Blind, founded in 1914, is the only American Sign Language immersion school in the state. Freitas said a shortage of qualified teachers in the past was due to the lack of formal ASL training in Hawai'i. All the teachers at the school received their training out of state.

All classes at the school are taught in sign language and use Braille, enlarged screens and print and captioned film and video as instructional aids.

Although there is no faculty dilemma this year, the school is looking for a new principal. Freitas, who has applied for the position, has served as interim administrator since June. She expects the new principal to be in place by mid-September.

"It makes it busy for me. It's very unsettling for the teachers, the students and parents," said Freitas.

Among the school's enrollment of 79 students this year, one-third are from foreign countries where English is a second language — with many new to the United States. Twenty-four students commute from the Neighbor Islands and stay at the on-campus dormitory during the week.

Students range in age from 3 to 20.

With a teacher-to-student ratio of about 1-to-6, the school's goal is to enable students to communicate and function in the community. Freitas said this is difficult because most of the students' parents can't sign.

"The kids come in already behind in acquiring the language," said Freitas. "That adds to the work the teachers have to do to catch them up."

When it comes to money and supplies, Freitas said sometimes the school gets overlooked.

The DOE's classification system does not indicate whether a child has multiple disabilities (for example, speech impairments on top of being deaf or blind), said Freitas. Fully 75 of the school's 79 students have multiple disabilities. This classification problem makes it difficult for the school to meet the needs of these students, Freitas said.

"It's not a detailed breakdown," said Freitas. "Our students are not what used to be called 'vanilla deaf kids.' It bothers the teachers because one label makes it hard to get autistic services, emotional specialists, because on paper (the students are) just deaf."

Because not all the school's textbooks are available in Braille, Freitas said, students must wait for the necessary supplies. This fall, students will be without a civics book for four to six months until it is translated.

Freitas said the school's teachers do far more than just teach.

"A lot of us wear more than one hat," said Freitas. "We're not just the teacher, we're the dive coach, we do the counseling, we teach the kid sign language, we go to their sports events, we interpret for them.

"It's something very different than teaching. A lot of us are like surrogate parents."

Anna Starks, 25, one of three new teachers at the school, looks at the opportunity to teach here as a challenge.

"Many of the kids come in at different levels," said Starks, who received her ASL training in Tennessee before moving to the Islands. "We keep that in mind while trying to teach the kids through real-life experiences as much as we can."

• What are you most proud of? Freitas is proud of the No. 5 ranking the school received in the May 2003 issue of Honolulu Magazine. The magazine ranked all 256 public schools in the state. Freitas attributed the high ranking to the dedication and hard work put in by her staff.

• Best-kept secret: The school is its own district within the Department of Education. The school has a student newspaper called Na Keiki Kuli O Hawaii, with the newswriting staff in charge of production, layout, photographs and design of the monthly publication.

• Everybody at our school knows: Speech teacher Naomi Murakami, who has been at the school since 1974. "A lot of the students she's had are now working on staff here," said Freitas.

• Our biggest challenge: Finding qualified staffers who are fluent in American Sign Language.

• What we need: A principal. Freitas said the new principal should be in place "hopefully by mid-September." Also needed are two full-time and one part-time house parent at the dormitories, and more textbooks for the visually impaired.

• Projects: The school hopes to establish an early intervention/home visit program to ease students' entry into the school system and also provide adult role models to promote the development of students' positive identity as independent citizens.