Below is the text of the letter to Secretary
Paige:
PARENTS VOICE, INC.
Post
Office Box 511
Wilmington, DE
19899-0511
Mr. Rod Paige
Secretary of Education
U.S. Department
of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC
20202-0498
May 1, 2002
RE: Policy Statement and Field Trials to address the
needs of millions of Functionally Hard of Hearing Students in
poor acoustical environments in schools.
Dear Secretary Paige,
Thank you for your time and attention.
We represent a group of committed parents of wonderful
functionally hard of hearing children in public schools with
communication disabilities who are negatively impacted by
ambient noise and reverberation. We are very pleased to see
from the enclosed copy of your response dated May 21, 2001 to
Congressman Ramstad that you support appropriate acoustics and
freedom from excessive noise in classrooms, for the benefit of
all students. This issue is, of course, especially significant
for our special children, and other students with special
needs, and their access to education. Inappropriate acoustics
create a barrier to speech intelligibility in classrooms. Our
children, and millions others, miss parts of speech,
opportunities for literacy and math skills, language used by
peers, and the dignity of citizenship.
We write to you to ask you to please help these children in
three ways.
First, as acoustical barriers currently impact millions of
high risk children, and all young students, we respectfully
ask you to immediately initiate field trials for acoustical
evaluations and research, possibly through the Field Initiated
Study Program or the IDEA provisions beginning with the most
at risk, hearing impaired students.
Second, with a growing number of parents and advocates who
are asking for appropriate acoustical evaluations and
modifications for these millions of children, some of us have
offered these at no cost to school districts, and have been
refused. School districts grappling with financial pressures
fear even pro bono services will set precedents. As a result,
millions of children who are suffering and misunderstood
and/or falling behind in the early years are losing the
benefit of volunteered funds or professional time. We ask you
to encourage school districts to look for opportunities to
help these children in a letter. With your help we hope to
start an "Adopt a Classroom" campaign across the nation.
Third, we ask you to issue Policy Guidance on room
acoustical modifications and accommodations, similar to that
issued by the Secretary on October 30, 1992, re Deaf Students
Education Services. In that Policy Guidance, the Secretary
aptly noted, "Because deafness is a low incidence disability,
there is not widespread understanding of its educational
implications, even among special educators. This lack of
knowledge and skills in our education system contributes to
the already substantial barriers to deaf students in receiving
appropriate educational services ... the Secretary believes
that the unique communication and related needs of many
children who are deaf have not been adequately considered in
the development of their IEPs ... Any setting which does not
meet the communication and related needs of a child who is
deaf, and therefore does not allow for the provision of FAPE,
cannot be considered the LRE for that child."
We continue to find that hearing loss, as a low incidence
disability, is not well understood and that the communication
needs of our children are often not recognized due to the
subtleties of hearing loss. It is very difficult to advocate
successfully for appropriate accommodations, especially for
the "invisible" accommodation of acoustics for this hidden and
misunderstood disability.
As parents and educators, we would like to be involved with
you and professionals in the field in the development of
Policy Guidance as the issue of acoustics and speech
discrimination in the classroom impacts scholastic
achievement, social interactions and social development. We
have collected research, data, and are in touch with many of
the top professionals in a number of fields who have an active
research interest in the impact of acoustics on development
and academic skills.
A summary of general concerns that we feel the Policy
Guidance could address, and which are already well embraced by
the knowledgeable professional community, is fairly well set
forth in the following excerpt from p. 51 of the 1994 "Deaf
and Hard of Hearing Students Educational Service Guidelines"
as published by the National Directors of Special Education
(updated in 2000): "To benefit from educational programming,
children need to be able to communicate with their teachers,
counselors, support personnel, principals, peers, coaches, and
other members of the immediate and extended school family.
Children who are deaf and hard of hearing are no exception,
and their ability to benefit from available programming is
directly related to their degree of communication
access...equal access should be the expectation...uninhibited
and direct access to instruction and social interaction within
the school environment should be an important consideration in
any discussion or review of program options ... Monitoring of
hearing, consultation on amplification and classroom
acoustics, and provision of aural rehabilitation are a
critical part of services most children who are hard of
hearing or deaf need...²
As stated by the President in his New Freedom Initiative
(Removing Barriers for Americans with Disabilities), "Wherever
a door is closed to anyone because of a disability, we must
work to open it ... Wherever any barrier stands between you
and the full rights and dignity of citizenship, we must work
to remove it, in the name of simple decency and simple
justice."
We are, again, very pleased to know of your previously
stated general support for appropriate acoustics and freedom
from excessive noise in classrooms. We trust you see that our
request for additional Policy Guidance is made in the spirit
of the President's statement and hope you agree our concern
for our children who have a hearing disability warrants
special attention, as soon as possible, in that same spirit,
i.e. "in the name of simple decency and simple justice."
Our functionally hard of hearing children are the
proverbial canaries of poor acoustic environments with issues
of literacy, communication, and expressive language. We look
forward to hearing from you during May, Better Speech and
Hearing Month.
Sincerely,
Monte M. Stern
President
PARENTS VOICE,
INC.
http://www.parentsvoice.org/
People Who Support This Letter Include:
Mr. Lou Sutherland, Co-chair, ANSI 12 W/G 42, Classroom
Acoustics
Mr. David Lubman, Co-chair, ANSI 12 W/G 42 Classroom
Acoustics
Mike Nixon, President, The Classroom Acoustics Special
Interest Group
Karen Sadler, University of Pittsburgh
Parents from California, Colorado, Georgia, Florida,
Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas,
Washington, including:
LeeAnne Seaver, Hands and Voices, Colorado
Alan Guma, Educator, New York
Claire D. Nelson, Parent/Advocate, Oregon
(The individuals below are copied for their information;
doing so is not intended to imply their support)
cc: Eugene Hickok, Under Secretary
The Honorable President Bush and Mrs. Bush
Sheila M. McGarr, Director, National Library of
Education
Alma Powell c/o Desiree Thompson, White House
Congressman James Ramstad
Thomas M. Corwin, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary
Mr. Michael Tecklenberg, Esq., President, Alexander Graham
Bell Association
Members of the Board of Trustees, Self Help for Hard of
Hearing People
Shirley Igo, President, National PTA
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Jewell Gould, Director of Research, American Federation of
Teachers
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