ROUGH EDITED COPY

2016 EHDI Annual MeetingTopical Session 8Pacific Salon 2

LANGUAGE EQUALITY AND ACQUISITION FOR DEAF KIDS!3:45 p.m.

March 15, 2016

CART SERVICES PROVIDED BY:ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC

PO BOX 278LOMBARD, IL 60148

* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

* * * * *

>> We're waiting for the interpreters to finish eating popcorn before we get started. Just joking, interpreters.

[ Laughter ]>> Welcome to Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids.

It's now in session until 4:45, and [ Inaudible ]. You've probably gotten comfortable with sitting where you are so be great if you could fill it out and then at the end I'll pass them along so we can turn them all in to show appreciation for [ Inaudible ]. Thank you so much.

>> SHERI FARINHA: Good morning. Welcome, welcome. I know that people are going to get in a little late, but because of our time constraints, we're going to go ahead and get started, if that's okay with everybody.

Thank you for joining us for our Language Equality and Acquisition for the Whole Deaf Child workshop. We're excited to share with you what this is all about.

My name is Sheri Farinha. I'm the CEO of NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. We work with 8 sister agencies in California. And our agency was founded in 1977. It was founded on the philosophy of by and for deaf and hard of hearing people.

Our services are funded by the Department of Social Services, and we're mandated to provide the variety of services which include advocacy and working with parents and children of all ages, from 0 to beyond.

My service areas cover 24 northeastern counties, and a majority of my staff and Board are deaf. I'm also the Chair of

the California Coalition of Agencies of the 8 agencies that I explained before, under NorCal. We're under legislative mandate, which funded our line item in the State budget. So advocacy services is part of that mandate.

These different sister agencies are throughout California. Anyone from California in the room?

Next slide. >> I think I'll stay right here if everybody can see me. I'm

tall enough. I guess I'm exploiting my tall privilege here. I'm representing California Association of the Deaf. California Association of the Deaf was founded in 1906. There was a big earthquake at that point, and actually, the group was found -- there was a group of Deaf individuals in Berkeley, or in that area, were concerned about the Deaf School. They were laying off at that time Deaf teachers, and they were replacing them with hearing teachers who did not sign. And so it was founded in 1906 as a response to that.

And again, of course, just like Sheri said, we are of, by, and for deaf people. Run by us. We serve us, so there's that connection. We are elected -- the Board is elected on a biannual basis, and the Board is 100% deaf, and that election happens during odd-numbered years. So this is my second term as the President of the California Association of the Deaf.

We work closely, Sheri just shared with you the Coalition of the 8 sister agencies in California. CAD used to be part of that Coalition and then wasn't for a while and then when I became President we rebuilt our relationship with those sister agencies.

Remember, there's power in numbers, and CAD became one of the sister agencies within the Coalition.

>> ESPERANZA ROSS: Hi. My name is Esperanza Ross.Hi, I'm Esperanza Ross. I'm the representative, legislative

advocate representative for the California Coalition of option schools. And for the center for Early Intervention on deafness.

This Coalition is made up of nonprofit, non-public, non-sectarian schools that are certified by the state of California, and they primarily teach children who are deaf and hard of hearing to speak and listen, which may or may not include visual supplements.

The list of schools that are part of the Coalition are outlined here on the slide, from throughout the state. And I've been working on their behalf for the last 5 to 6 years in Sacramento. And I've had the honor of also working side by side with these two wonderful ladies.

>> We're not to the LEAD-K portion yet but I'm wondering how many CAD members or people involved with the Board are here. Can you please stand? Two of us, I guess. How many people are here from option schools, CCOS option schools? Go ahead and stand up.

Stand up, stand up![ Off Microphone ]Both organizations are working together to support SB 210.[ Off Microphone ]But before we get there, I want to talk with you about what

brought us together in the first place. There was a Bill about 6 or 7 years ago titled AB 2072, authored by a Senate member at the time by the name of Mendoza. The Bill was introduced by option schools and CCID. Also, there was the Academy of audiology that was a part of the Bill.

The Bill included information about -- that could be provided for new parents that didn't involve Deaf stakeholders when the bill was initially drafted. Once we found that out, we weren't satisfied with the information that was included in the document. We didn't feel that it was a full example of the types of information that was out there. There was only one sentence at the very end of the brochure that talked about American Sign Language.

We fought against the bill passing. It became a very ugly war within the Legislature. That bill was vetoed by the Governor, Schwarzenegger, at the time. People began to recognize at that time the importance of -- about our mantra: Nothing about us without us. We have to be there at the table for the discussions, any time a new bill is being introduced.

So with the bill AB 2072, we had a huge protest at the Capitol. And I believe that AB 455 was a different bill that was introduced by the Department of Education at the time. That was about access to the common core standards, so the blind individuals were the ones who wanted that bill to pass. And it pertained to Braille access to the Common Core standards. The requirement was that Braille be mandated for individuals who are blind.

At the same time, the bill was amended to add American Sign Language services. Needless to say, the bill was overthrown because of the option schools' opposition to that. They weren't satisfied with the letter of that bill, and what was going on. They wanted to amend the bill for themselves.

When we found out about the amendment, and the opposition to the bill, things became really stirred up and confusing. There was lots of insecurity. Do you want to add anything about that time? There was a lot of legislative confusion at that time.

>> Yes, starting with AB -- the Mendoza bill, I just wanted to add that the intent was to create more information for parents with regard to the options, but as innocent as that may seem to our group, it was very, very clear that Sheri's organization was -- felt not included in the process, and we learned a lot of lessons through that, what Sheri called a war, because it was

really, really ugly in the Legislature. It was very destructive and legislators did not appreciate kind of how the two groups interfaced in the process, and I know our group learned a great deal on what to do, what not to do, with regard to any future legislation.

And we'll get to a little bit more on what happened as a result of that, but then on AB 455, Sheri's outline is correct. Putting aside her opposition of the confusion, we also were not satisfied with the bill that the Department of Education introduced, and so we were trying to ensure that what they did, didn't impact the Coalition of option schools so we also suggested how to amend it so that it wouldn't do that. In the process, a lot of it got confused, and as a result of our two groups once again not coming together, that bill ended up failing in the process.

So I think the theme from both of these bills is, if the two groups didn't come together and work that out, either ahead of time or have some form of communication with regard to what the other one was doing with regard to the Deaf and hard of hearing community, it just becomes very ugly very fast in the legislative process. And that's not a good place to be with regard to where legislators want to see things in terms of moving forward.

>> So before all of this happened, there had been years, over 50 years, of frustrations with Deaf education, trying to show again and again the status of Deaf education, and the fact that it was unsatisfactory, and actually, unacceptable, with the Babbage Report explaining everything in great detail, the report was presented to the President at that time in 1965, which outlined the concerns. Then the COED report, Commission on Education of the Deaf report, was submitted to the President and the Congress, also detailing the status of Deaf education, and how poorly it was going.

The Light Act Quality study was done, and that study also resulted in showing that Deaf education was failing. The NASDSE, National Association of state Directors of Special Ed Administrators, they did a report also outlining the fact that Deaf education was poor. The Superintendent's Task Force under Delaine Eastin, I was the chair of the Task Force at the time, with the goal of restructuring Deaf education. We explained how dire the situation was, so report after report after report. No changes were happening, so the recommendation was originalization, to work with the schools for the deaf to create a central office of education for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Again, all the evidence that the reports pointed to were showing that Deaf education was not working, and it was time for action.

>> Let me add to that. Sheri and I just recently found a

stack of documents even prior to the Babbage Report. CAD has been struggling with this issue since 1910, was the first letter that was written, the President of CAD was sharing concerns about the education system for Deaf children. So it's been over 100 years we've been crying out to the wind on this.

So we did this presentation on keynote. We had to switch it to PowerPoint because of the computer system, so I'll just apologize ahead of time, there are some kind of formatting issues, and I appreciate your forbearance with that.

>> So this is why we developed or decided about a new way to change the landscape of Deaf education. We founded a focus from 0 to 5 that was called LEAD-K. Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids. It was organized and promoted by working with parents, advocates, educators, members of the community, schools, all working together to make the change possible. Julie?

>> JULIE REMS-SMARIO: Sheri is the campaign Director for LEAD-K. And I'm the campaign Public Relations Director, so she and I work very closely together, but of course, it's not just the two of us. There's an entire team. The CAD Board members, some of those who are here today are also involved.

>> So how this initiative and legislation came to be and actually signed into law is probably -- I still think --

[ Off Microphone ]Yeah, after 2072, I'm actually still surprised that we're able

to stand here before you and say that we were successful in getting SB 210 signed into law. But when the Mendoza bill that we had referenced earlier in the slides fell apart, we went through this ugly legislative process, when that all happened, rather than continue down that same path of the two groups in California fighting with each other, the thing that came to us was: Why don't we figure out a way to rather than focus on our differences, to focus on our commonality.

So what we did was we ended up having a couple of facilitations between the two groups, where we actually brought in a neutral facilitator for several days, so that we can actually sit down and walk through what we were both about, and more importantly, walk away with a mutual respect for the fact that we had more in common than we did differences.

All of that was a lot of work that's not reflected on these slides, and that's really, really important, because success, as much -- as easy as we'll make it seem today, takes a lot of hard work, and so I don't want to just bypass that too quickly without footnoting what that was about. We're happy to answer those questions afterwards.

But that leads us to the Step 1 that we took. From those facilitations that we had, we walked away with not only mutual respect, but also an agreement, and the agreement was that we

would keep each other informed about any legislation or any policy related to the Deaf and hard of hearing community, and we have since done that.

With regard to SB 210, Sheri and Julie contacted me right away about this particular initiative, and pursuant to the agreement that we had worked out in those facilitations, CAD honored the agreement by reaching out to us, and invited us to look at the language and consider it and as a result we continued down that same course of figuring out a way to find mutuality with regard to the policy presented, and work it out among ourselves first before we went into the Legislature, because frankly, there's a lot of challenges in the legislative process in California, and our differences should not be the first one.

So working it out prior proved in this case to be really successful approach, and probably one of the key factors for why it was signed into law. But with that, I'll move to Step 2, and I think someone...

>> You do Step 2. I'll do step 3.>> So the bottom line is, the reason why we approached and

asked the option schools to join the bill, because the goal was about English skills. Literacy skills, reading and writing. We wanted the Deaf kids to be kindergarten ready, whether or not they were using English or American Sign Language, both together. We wanted them to have the literacy skills they needed to get into kindergarten. You can't argue with that. It's a very simple concept. Both sides agreed that that was what we needed to focus on.

They agree that there were gaps in the system. We know that there are gaps in the system. All of us are seeing problems in this area. It was obvious. And we knew that language deprivation is a reality. Julie?

>> JULIE REMS-SMARIO: So with that common understanding of wanting our kids to be kindergarten ready, we wanted to have language -- English literacy specifically -- efforts in place. 0 to 5 years, we want the State to be accountable for kids' learning of those literacy skills. So CAD, we're very fortunate to have Sheri as our lobbyist.

>> SHERI FARINHA: I'm not a lobbyist. I'm a volunteer. >> JULIE REMS-SMARIO: On a voluntary basis she was willing to

pound the pavement, along with Esperanza. I joined, as well, when I could, going to the Capitol, talking about being accountable for children's language based on those language milestones.

And that was a powerful message that we shared. And we were able to push that message together.

>> Precisely. We didn't have to fight over the details about the bill. We didn't. There were a few semantic edits that had

to happen, but basically, we were in full agreement.And like she said, it was more of agreement than not. That

really began a beautiful relationship between the two entities, Esperanza, who is wonderful to work with. She's a very skilled lobbyist.

So in the process of developing that bill in concert with CAD and option schools, we had to find somebody in the legislative body who would sponsor, author the bill, and Esperanza has a wonderful network in the Capitol. She just knows everybody, and she knew who to find. So we had Senator Cathleen Galgiani, who was amazing to work with, who got the message, who got unanimous support, and bipartisan support in the Legislature. It was truly an amazing thing to see. It was kind of like a no-brainer. Everybody said, yeah, Deaf kids need to have language of course. There's no reason to argue against this. They learned our kids weren't getting that. It was actually a teachable moment for us in the Capitol.

I still get goosebumps really when I think about how everyone just kind of stood up for Deaf kids. Not one person opposed this bill. And some of you may have seen Assemblymember Gallagher made a video where he was signing on the floor. He has two Deaf brothers, so he can sign, and he understood what Deaf children go through, and there's a video of him that became viral. And people thought that he actually authored the bill. But he wasn't. He was a runner for the assembly.

But we got so much support from the folks in the Capitol and from the community at large. And because of that, because of working together in that way, other states have been looking to us as a model. They want what we've been able to achieve. And there are 10 states who are currently working with the LEAD-K organization to copy SB 210. This just got signed into law this past November -- October, by the Governor, by Governor Brown, so it is law, for which we are very proud.

If someone had told me two or three years ago that this would happen, that I wouldn't have believed you.

[ Laughter ]>> Me either.>> I don't know what you're seeing in your crystal ball, but

change is possible. Things are possible.>> SHERI FARINHA: And I had faith.>> ESPERANZA ROSS: It took open mindedness, open hearts and

communication. The key, though, is we went to lobby legislators in every committee. Not only that, but staffers, staff of different consulting firms for the Republican side, the Democratic side. They were always impressed with what we were saying. They said: You mean you guys aren't disagreeing with one another? We stood there together saying: No, we're in this

together and to them, it was almost like a relief.>> I'm going to share a really fun story on that point. So as

we were entering the Capitol for the first time to lobby SB 210, first day, Sheri and I walk in, and the first person we see is Senator Tony Mendoza, the author of the previous bill. And he didn't know what to do. He was like, do you see her and does she see you? Are you standing next to each other?

[ Laughter ]And we looked at him, we said: We're here supporting the same

bill, and he about just lost it.[ Laughter ]So it surprised everybody.>> That was very funny. So the reason SB 210 is really

important, or critical, there's some confusion about what SB 210 actually does. I'm hoping people that are here as educators can help share the right information once you leave the session today.

Common Core competencies require reading and writing in K-12. SB 210 will help create steps to build a child's language acquisition and foundation ready for kindergarten.

>> You can see the second bullet point, language acquisition is critical and there's a window of opportunity. It's the first two years, because the brain grows 3 times its size in those two years. At the age of 5, the brain of the child has completed 95% of its growth. That's why we say, we're talking about kindergarten being that sensitive age. We want to get language into these children's brains prior to them coming to kindergarten at 5.

And so we would explain that when we would go around to the Capitol, and talk about the need to be accountable, and look for those milestones, and get involved. Families don't necessarily know about language acquisition milestones. They know about some of the other developmental milestones, the physical milestones. The ability to roll over and support your own head and crawl and toddle and walk and so forth. They know those physical milestones. But we need to increase the understanding of the linguistic milestones.

At 6 months, a child should already be able to sign, for example, "milk." By the age of 12 months, they should be able to maybe have 30 vocabulary items under their belt. Then they progress to 2 and 3-word sentences. That's information that needs to be shared so that families can be empowered, and then they can realize if their child is not progressing in the expected way, they can talk about the IFSP to the providers every 6 months. The IFSP is what predates the IEP for these children.

And the last bullet point is that parents, educators, and professionals need to recognize the difference between language

acquisition and language deprivation and delay, language deprivation and delay are different. You can be acquiring language but be delayed for other reasons, cognitive issues, physical issues, that may interfere. So that gives us the opportunity to really understand what's going on, and catch these kinds of issues early so that we can address them successfully.

>> So the provisions of SB 210.Firstly, the bill is going to establish a stakeholders Council

of 13 members, which will include parents, educators, advocates, curriculum specialists, and so forth. Coming around the table and that group then will meet as an ad hoc Advisory Committee for a temporary time period, to make recommendations of parent resources. All of them will be on the language developmental milestones. At the age of one, what should a child know? What words should they recognize? What signs or spoken words should they have by that age?

How many words should they know by the time they're 2 or 3? How many words should they be putting together to make sentences by the age of 3 or 4? What should they be writing and when? When should they fully know their ABCs? The IFSP, Early Intervention teachers are working with families, and are required to have some discussions about developmental goals and objectives.

So the early start teachers would be required to show the parents the resources that they need. Once the resources have been decided by the committee, so those resources will be shown to every parent in that age range of 0 to 5 that people are working with, and there will be regular progress taken.

The stakeholder Council will also be required to recommend educational tools for assessment in order to look at the progress. We're talking about 0 to 5, so don't think K-12 types of formal assessments, sitting down and testing the student on their abilities. With a 0 to 5 category, it's very different. Assessment will look different.

We're going to look at language development solely. There must be a documentation of the review and assessment. If the child is not meeting the correct milestones at the correct age, then that will be documented. And we have to see if there's another alternative where they might be screened for a different disability at an earlier age, if they're not meeting milestones on time. The Stakeholder Council will be making recommendations on a couple of educational tools for assessment. Right now there's such a breadth of options out there, and Nancy Seger -- is she here in the audience?

[ Off Microphone ]Oh, bummer. So I think there's 20 different educational tools

that teachers use currently, Early Starts teachers, there's 20 or

so. We don't want to use all 20 of them. We'd like to narrow the playing field down to a handful so that we can have some standardization for consistency purposes, and then we can use them to measure progress. From there, we can share information with SELPA. That would be shared with the State. The State can collect that information, and then on an annual basis, there can be a Progress Report made for the language milestones on the CDEC website. That will be available to all.

We require that the data right now, the California is using a system that is called DRDP, Desired Results Domains something or other, but it's not Deaf and hard of hearing specific. So we have requested that the data for deaf and hard of hearing language development progress be segregated so that it's clear, and we can see the progress firsthand. and how it applies to deaf and hard of hearing children. That also puts accountability on the schools.

>> We are finally going to have data about our children. We do not have this data currently. I'm thrilled that we are finally going to have this information.

>> The only thing I just wanted to add was that none of the success would have happened, in my belief, as an advocate in Sacramento doing this day in and day out unless we had all come together and really come to agreement. I know that we may make it look easy, but it really wasn't. It took a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of emails, a lot of meetings, a lot of door-knocking, and going back and forth with the various agencies that do get impacted by the language.

And as a result of all of that hard work, it was the first of its kind with regard to legislation in the country, and as Sheri shared with you, when we can come together, it is very historic, and with regard to the option schools, working with Sheri, we were also able to be part of that committee that's reflected in the bill, and we continue to have meetings on the implementation of the bill. So it's one thing to get it into law, but then it's another thing to ensure that the spirit of the law and the intent of the law is implemented in the way that you intended.

So we continue to have those meetings. We have our next one on Monday with the Department of Finance, and the work never ends to ensure that this actually becomes real for children who are deaf and hard of hearing 0-5.

>> Yeah, your work is not completed when a law gets passed. That's sort of the real work begins. Implementation is really the heart of the work, and we are watching them like a hawk to make sure that they do their job, and like you said, like Esperanza just reminded us, we've got to go to Sacramento again soon.

>> The CDE will be responsible to provide the training to all

the educators out there. Once the resources have been developed and designed and are ready, and the educational tools were selected, the data has been segregated, the CDE is then responsible to provide the training.

To all the educators in the state of California. So that's how they're going to be able to work with the information, and we can make the progress. We can document on either the IFSP or the IEP.

It's a work in progress. Meanwhile, CAD and CIAD and OOS, option schools, are trying to spread the word nationwide. And throughout the state of California we're looking for interested parties to be members of the ad hoc committee.

So when we make the selection for the ad hoc committee, those will be the people that you contact if you want more information. I think we've got some hands, some questions? Let's say you go first.

>> So on the bill, you mentioned 10 states. Which of the 10 states that are trying to replicate the bill?

>> So the states that are interested in working with us currently --

>> Rhode Island in one of them.>> Rhode Island.>> Kansas.>> Yes, Kansas.>> Arizona.>> Texas. Idaho. Illinois.>> Arizona.>> Virginia. Arizona, yes.>> Hawaii.>> Washington.>> Washington. Did I say Hawaii? Not yet. No, Hawaii.>> Yeah.>> What did you say? Did you say Hawaii?>> Yes.>> Hawaii, it's in the works.>> Over here? Let's say Marla?>> I think it's important what has been covered in today's

presentation. Obviously because of limited time, the full details are not here but the implications are legend. There has been a tendency to say: Well, Deaf kids are language delayed and that's just the way it is with Deaf kids. We're not going to accept anymore. From my personal point of view, this is epic. I mean, if parents are concerned about their children because their children don't seem to have language and the Early Interventionists have told them that that is the way it is for Deaf kids, that's no longer going to be an acceptable answer. I think in some ways that's the most important implication of this

bill, of SB 210, that delays and issues are going to have to be documented, and everybody will be concerned at the same time, because there is that accountability. So I just wanted to kind of highlight that.

I think you covered as much as you could and everything was important but for me personally that's the most important finding.

>> My question is related to teachers and teacher training. I have research related to professional development for teachers, and personally, I'm wondering how you plan to get together with the teacher to get their buy-in on the goals of the new bill, and have them work with the children instead of just give up on this new venture.

Because, you know, teaching is difficult, and sometimes not all are open to a new philosophy or a new plan of teaching. Just wondering if you have a strategy around that.

>> Before this bill became a bill, I spoke with Early Start teachers and explained to them the purpose of the bill, and they were thrilled, absolutely thrilled! Because finally they were going to have something to give to parents, and some consistency.

Teachers are out there developing things on their own all the time, every day, and they don't always have a support from the top to get new items and new materials. This is something that is going to be required to be given to them.

But they're already going and they're required by law to go to the family's home and work with the family for the development of the IFSP goals and objectives. That's part of their daily work. We're just adding teeth to what they talk about.

So they're thrilled with that. Did I answer your question?>> Yes, thank you. Perfect.>> Great.>> We plugged it right into the current system. I actually

can't remember who their hand up next but I'll go here.>> Unfortunately, I see a major hole in this entire process,

and that is for children who are 0-3 who have been diagnosed with a hearing loss, and some other disabling condition who then fall under Regional Center. How are we going to then ensure the Regional Center also complies with this aspect? Because local education agencies then are not the primary service coordination. And I know that Sheri, you mentioned that California Department of Education was going to try to ensure the following up of this new bill, but I think you probably mean for children that are being served under the local education agency, basically children who are solely low-incidence.

And that's where my concern is, with the 0-3 children, with Regional Center as the primary service coordination. How do we ensure that this happens with those children, as well?

>> Nancy is here in the room. So would you like to answer that question, Nancy?

>> So I think that Natasha has brought up a really good point which is that there are some children who are being served in Regional Center who are not getting any language services. Now, that's not true for all children who are Regional Center kids, because many of them are being dually served, either by the local school district or by a non-public school that serves Deaf and hard of hearing children through a contract with the Regional Center.

So many of those kids are getting Deaf and hard of hearing services, but not all. What I'm hoping this bill will do, because those kids are going to be knocking on some school district's door when they're 3, is that this will expose those children -- I hate to use those children as sort of guinea pigs in this process -- but when we do those -- but actually, it will kind of happen right away, the first time this assessment's done, we'll see those 3-year-olds who have come from Regional Centers where they were not getting any language services, and we're going to find out they don't have any language skills, commensurate with their age or with their cognitive abilities, and I'm hoping that this bill will expose that, and stop that practice.

>> Yes, I agree.>> I thought I saw another hand in the back? Did I?>> Can everybody see me here? So I'm a preschool kindergarten

teacher, and I've used the assessment that Sheri mentioned, the DRPD, or whatever.

>> DRDP.>> I have used it, and my kids always pass. They always pass

everything so it comes out as if they're fine, and it doesn't really work for the Deaf students. I'm really excited to see some new assessments are going to be developed. Can you tell us the time line for when those assessments will be available? You said there will be training and everything, I'd like to start using it ASAP. How soon are they coming out? 2017 is right around the corner.

>> '18.>> So the report will be on the website by 2018. But the

implementation is now -- well, officially 2017. So we're going have to the ad hoc committee together by July 1st, ideally, or July 2nd, beginning of the fiscal year. So the ad hoc committee piece has to happen first. They have to recommend which educational tools and assessments will be used. They will be pulling from those that are already out there. The ones that early start teachers are using.

But because there are 20 in place currently, and they're so

vastly different, we want to narrow the options down to just a couple for standardization purposes. So the ad hoc committee or stakeholders committee is responsible for bringing recommendations as to which of the CDE should use.

Then the CDE will pick, make the final decision, of which ones.

>> Yeah, if I can add to that. Let me add to what Sheri said.She said, does LA Unified School District know about that?

And I said: Yes, they will.>> The Ad Hoc Committee has to be 51% Deaf and led by a Deaf

chairperson, so that's an important provision, as well. The CDE is right now in the process of finalizing the letters to invite certain individual schools, organizations, including the Unified School District, using -- including CAD, for nominations for this ad hoc committee. So 51% Deaf, 49% option schools or other oral methods or educators and so forth, administrators. We're going to try and sort of look for parity on this ad hoc committee and there will be a list of recommended tools that are out there that will then be offered to the CDE for selection.

So you'll see the call for nominations. You'll see that through CAD's website.

>> And the only thing I would add to that, as we found mutual commonality in the legislation itself, those values and those principles, as well, will need to move to the implementation of the bill for it to also succeed, because without everyone's agreement, you can see quickly how even on the implementation side of a law, it could also fall apart, and it could potentially go nowhere, so that's why we're always going to the meetings together. We're finding that common ground consistently, so that we can see this thing from Day One as an idea all the way to a reality for children throughout the state. We want to make sure it's successful all the way through.

>> In other words, we're going to be watching the CDE like a hawk.

[ Laughter ]Any other questions? Yes?>> Up here in the front?>> What about the school districts in California who have Deaf

teachers working with children, developing their language skills? Does that exist? I mean, not hearing teachers. They should be Deaf individuals. Is that -- in the Public Schools I'm talking about, in the mainstream settings.

>> So the woman who just stood up, she's teaching -- you're in a public school aren't you, Stephanie? Yeah. So there are actually many Deaf teachers out there working, and allies working, in public school settings. So, yep, we'll make sure they know about these applications for the ad hoc committee as

well, absolutely.>> Yes? Any other questions? Any last burning questions for

the day?>> If I may add to what Julie shared, that was always part of

the intent of the bill, as well. So it's never to exclude any one individual, regardless of whether they sign or they're oral. So that's always been the intent.

>> And then there's no excuse for language deprivation. We want to put a stop to language deprivation so that's why we're looking forward to this working.

>> I'm really thrilled to see the progress and all the hard work you've put into this. A question about language acquisition and deprivation. And listening and spoken language, and American Sign Language. I think there's the issue of American Sign Language not being recognized as official language. Did that ever come up with your discussion with the Legislature? Did anyone ever question whether or not American Sign Language was an actual language? Or did you receive no argument?

>> No, we didn't, nobody.>> Oh, that's interesting.>> In America, we have many languages. American Sign Language

is the third most widely used language in the United States. So that's how the legislators look at it. California has a heavy Latino population, as well, so in theory, English is the visual language of California.

Official language of California, but if you say that to any Asians or Latinos or Hmongs or any other community here in California they're not going to agree that English is the official language of California. Your official language is your official language so for us it's American Sign Language and English for Deaf children. And that was how it was accepted.

>> And actually the U.S. doesn't have any language that isn't recognized as an official language. There's nothing on our laws that --

>> I realized that. I was just wondering if it came up at all in discussion with the legislators. Because I know there are many cultures in California. I was just wondering if there was a question as to the validity of American Sign Language during the discussion.

>> Yeah, we're lucky to be in California because of the multilingual nature of the state.

>> So I just wanted to answer your question. In California, American Sign Language has been recognized as a language since I think 1986, so it's accepted as a language other than English to be taught in the schools. We have a credential to teach American Sign Language, and all of the California state universities and universities of California is accepted as a language other than

English. It has been in California for many years.>> Thank you.>> And I'll add to that, delayed to share that in California,

we do follow the Common Core standard curriculum, and for the kindergarten kids, the curriculum says that they must learn about world languages, including ASL. So American Sign Language is actually spelled out in the curriculum for the Common Core, so there is recognition in California of ASL.

>> Any last questions? Yes?>> Maybe you already mentioned this and I didn't see it, so

the assessments that are planning to be required, I'm thrilled that American Sign Language is there. I'm tired of modifying assessments that don't meet the needs of assessing ASL.

Will it also include students in the oral program in the assessment? Will it accommodate their needs, as well?

>> Yes, yes. But the same milestones must be achieved, so all children have the potential to acquire language and acquire all of those milestones whether they're Deaf or hearing, so any child in California has to be meeting those milestones, and there's no excuse for any child being left behind, any deaf children having those delays.

>> Precisely. People think it's American Sign Language or English. The same milestones are going to be reached regardless of which language is used. The same expectations are going to be there. One's not better or lower than the other.

>> And there are some people who really sort of struggle to understand how we can expect a child to learn American Sign Language and then be ready for English literacy by age 5, and my response is: You have to think about it as an L1-L2 situation. You have to have a foundational language, and that is your key to unlocking other languages.

>> And I just wanted to say that our two groups, when we talked about this issue, we spent I would say hours and hours and hours around the words "or" and "and." So if that gives you any insight as to the two groups coming together, and what they discussed, the words "or" and "and" were discussed for many, many hours. And I think there's a final question.

>> And we want to emphasize "and" first, that's the big difference. That's what we chose.

>> We have time for one final question.>> I'm sorry I arrived late. It's possible you covered this

already but now that we've got this bill passed, is a it model for other states? Are you working with other states? I think many other states should follow your lead.

>> Yes, in fact you did arrive late. We talked about this. We do have a toolkit ready. All of the information is available in sign language as well as English so we've got a toolkit so if

your state is interested in pursuing the same avenue, contact Sheri or myself and we're happy to share that toolkit. We can share it via base camp. And you can get our consultative advice and support.

>> I think Marla wants to have the final word.>> If you want your state to know about it, you should, you

know, get in touch, right? I think it's -- I mean, it's not our job to evangelize necessarily. We are working in California but we're happy to share with other states. Thank you so much.

And with that, any final parting words? She was looking for a video with Nile. How many of you have seen Nile's announcement for LEAD-K. Some of you have seen it. Some of you haven't seen it yet. He's done a couple already. So if we can't get it to work in this room, please do check it out. You can look under LEAD-K's website or SB 210 or Nile or the Senator's name, whichever way you can find it. Like I said these videos have gone viral. He did a beautiful job, both the Senator and Nile did a beautiful job. It's bilingual, it's presented in ASL and English and it's a lovely example of what it can be. We'll try and pull it up now. We'll see if we can get it up.

>> I just wanted to say thank you, it's an honor to be here and I also want to thank the interpreters.

>> You'll have to Google it and YouTube it. Thank you so much for coming.

>> Thank you for joining us. Have a great day.[ End of session ]

* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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