Adventures at Cecil D. Elementary

My family moved to Boise when I was five years old, and even though my speech was still very primitive my family enrolled me in the local mainstreamed, elementary school. The only thing was that because my language development still needed a lot of guidance, I needed a Cued Speech interpreter, speech therapists, an FM system, preferential seating, the works. There was only on small problem, there was no funding for these services in public schools in Idaho, and the reason why was because most of all the money that was appropriated to serving deaf and hard of hearing students in the State of Idaho was sent to the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind (ISDB). I did a senior project on the fiscal public policy of the ISDB budget and this was a little portion of the devastating research I found.

“The Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind, in 2009, was allotted $9,040,300 for the operation of the school. According to the annual budget summary, it can be seen where the money has been allotted and used. “$5,852,400 was designated to the school itself and the 75 students it teaches and the remaining $3,137,900 is set aside for outreach programs for the 660 deaf and hard of hearing students throughout the state” (Executive Budget, 2010). These 75 students have a benchmark success rate set up by their teachers and counselors. “For 2008, the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind only expected 25% of their students to become gainfully employed after they graduated, they had none do so” (Performance Measures, 2010).”

Deaf and Blind, Idaho School for the Performance Measurement Report Performance 
Highlights: Enrollment in FY 2008 started at 58 students and ended the year at 73 students. This is a 25.9% increase in campus enrollment.

 Performance Measures

Performance Measure	2005	2006	2007	2008	Benchmark
Number of Resident Students Who Achieve High School Graduation With Their Primary Year Group	8 students (80%)	4 students (50%)	3 students (43%)	4 students (80%)	60%
Number of students Who Go on to Postsecondary Education; Either College or Professional-Technical Training	6 students (60%)	4 students (50%)	1 student (14%)	3 students (60%)	60%
Number of Students Living Independently or at College or Training Facility	5 students (50%)	6 students (75%)	3 students (43%)	2 students (40%)	70%
Number of Students Gainfully Employed (full-time)	1 student (10%)	1 student (13%)	2 students (29%)	0 students (0%)	25%

With facts like this, you can only imagine the worry of concerned parents of a hard of hearing child that just wants her to succeed (especially on that was strongly encouraged to go to a school such as this with the very likely chance of successfully entering secondary education, the work field or let alone graduate from the school itself). So even though I had hearing aids (finally) and a beautiful method of communication (miraculously, thank you to Dianna Jordan) I still had mainstreamed school with services to fight for. I sat oblivious of my parent’s sacrifice and fortitude, and after many debates with the State and ISDB all the sudden everything I needed was there. It wasn’t until I was much older that my situation was a very rare one. I felt pretty spoiled to be able to leave class for speech therapy or have meetings with the teacher at the beginning of the year (which I thought was normal until middle school) so that my teachers always had my name down first. Probably the best things were sitting in the front row at every single assembly and getting to bring a friend (I had lots of friends then) and my teachers feeling like a rock star wearing the headset microphone for the FM system. (this was really nice with the old old teachers I had in middle school, the ones that were the same ones there that my uncle had and I’d just wish they didn’t make the connection that we were related, or my grade may have suffered…Thanks Uncle Bryan…don’t worry his last name was my mom's maiden name, so the Coleman name is still untainted.) 

The funniest story from elementary school was about Tommy. Oh Tommy. My mom was asked to come in and talk about hearing loss, hearing aids and cochlear implants to our first grade class. Then I had bright green ear molds that you could see in my ear a mile away. But anyway my mom came in and brought some of my old molds, and aids for the kids to look at. It was as if the kids thought I was a secret agent with my neon green ear molds, and they were jealous, especially Tommy. Well the show and tell went great, my mom went home and we all went out to recess on our pea gravel playground. Tommy, obviously entirely intrigued by my mom’s lesson, wanting to be like me, grabbed the first thing he saw to put in his ears. Well, that was the pea gravel. The next thing we know poor little Tommy is complaining about his ears hurting and that he can’t really hear (who knew pea gravel doesn’t amplify sound?) and we realize that he had put a generous handful in his ear and wedged them in his ear canal pretty well. I guess I call him my first diehard fan! Thank goodness my dad was an Ear Nose and Throat doctor, he helped Tommy get every last piece of gravel out. Poor guy had a serious Coleman overload that day! My mom and I still, to this day, have a good laugh about Tommy! So even though my aids are really so fascinating,(and for you hearing people, it's just painful to wear because the feedback is so loud and having things in your ears just feels so weird!) and I make them look so cool, please don’t do the rocks, or anything else, my dad’s retired.