Human Resources and Full Inclusion in the Education of Students Who Are Deaf

Topic of Interest: Full Inclusion ations, it remains for parents, school personnel, and as they become older, deaf students themselves, to decide together what constitutes the least restrictive environment. For many, inclusion is likely to be the option of choice. Human Resources and Full Inclusion in the Education of Students Who Are Deaf Stephanie Polowe-Aldersley President Monroe County (NY) School Boards Association I have been invited to share some thoughts on full inclusion as a school board official. I should add that I am also a teacher and a past president of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, and these no doubt contribute to my views on full inclusion . Our primary concern regarding educational placement must be the best interests of the child. Nevertheless , school officials must also confront another reality - human resources . And when we think of human resources as applied to the education of deaf students, we must consider their quality, availability, and cost. Permit me to discuss each of these in the context of full inclusion of deaf students. Quality. In the past, in self-contained settings such as schools for the deaf, the evaluation of professionals working with deaf students has been quite feasible. If a teacher couldn't communicate with her or his deaf students, we knew it, and we knew where to find that teacher additional training. But with the proliferation of single-student placements, there is often no one in the immediate environment who can make an informed assessment of competence. The ability of administrators and colleagues in the neighbourhood "inclusion" school to evaluate and mentor the "deafness professional" is often in question. Instead, it becomes easy to attribute a deaf student's failure to that student's alleged inadequacies. Worse yet is the assumption that any generic special education teacher can be an effective teacher of the deaf. The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), having initially embraced full inclusion as a philosophy, is now receiving indications from members that they don't consider themselves qualified to serve deaf students. Combine these problems with an isolated deaf child's unwillingness to be singled out for special treatment, and parents' unfamiliarity with the quality of services they should be demanding , and we have a recipe for academic disaster. Full inclusion is a policy that leaves the quality of the setting to the good will of the people involved. Many will set high standards , but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the policy itself encourages a standard. Availability. When we think of human resources, we must also consider their availability. Qualified teachers of the deaf are difficult to identify. Membership in the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf (CAID) has shrunk over the past decade from a high of 12,000 members to its present size of 1,200. In a 1993 survey of the organization's inactive members, the most common reason given for leaving CAID was "leaving the field". There are about 1,500 teachers who belong to the CECs special interest group concerned with communication disorders, but not all are teachers of the deaf. Many teach generic special education classes which include deaf students. Inclusion settings are particularly hostile to teachers of the deaf who are themselves deaf. Policies of inclusion have all but wiped out the field's modest gains in hiring teachers who are deaf role models or models for minority deaf students. These professionals still work primarily in selfcontained settings. There are always teachers who are willing to give teaching a deaf student in an inclusion setting a try, and they may do a good job, but this is not because we have a system in place to ensure the availability of qualified personnel. Also related to availability is burnout . The practice of using teachers in itinerant settings isolates them. Itinerant teachers have their offices in their cars. They don't get to know their students or colleagues well, and they have to be young, strong, and resilient . We see a great deal of careerswitching within this group. Yet because of the proliferation of single-student placements, i.e., inclusion , school districts now employ more professionals than ever. In our local Board of...