The Arizona Schools for the Deaf and the Blind will move to Oro Valley next school year, the Board of Directors voted Thursday — forcing many students, including those who are vision-impaired, to find a different school.
The board vote to move was 5-2, with the two objections from Tucson resident William Koehler, a former school administrator and Phoenix-based member Earl Terry. A second vote to lay off about 70 people was 5-1 with Terry abstaining.
“You should be ashamed,” a parent shouted to the board as she exited the meeting on a scooter.
“I can’t take it anymore,” another announced as he banged his right fist on the stage and two family members followed him out.
As the vote came down, the crowd of about 300 people had dwindled to about 100. Dozens of Tucson-based teachers, staff, families and students wore black t-shirts with ASDB spelled out in American Sign Language in white letters within an Arizona state outline.
The Thursday board meeting included 45 minutes of public comment — instead of the usual 10 — and more than a dozen speakers. As two Phoenix policemen stood in the back of the auditorium, a board member and some attendees were warned for speaking out of turn. Two assistants from the Arizona Attorney General’s office sat behind a curtain with microphones. They were heard but not seen.
The vote came in hour five of the meeting.
“Before I make my vote I would like to offer that this action will gut this agency,” Koehler said to claps — both audible and in American Sign Language, with two hands up, palms forward and twisting side-to-side.
ASDB Superintendent Annette Reichman cited lack of federal and state funds, declining birth rates resulting in lower enrollment, more complicated student needs, and deteriorating buildings and infrastructure as the primary reasons for all the changes: the move which separates deaf and blind students and laying off about 70 people.
“The state is not giving us any money. We have a hiring freeze, we’ve stopped hiring. We’ve stopped giving you pay increases,” Reichman said at Thursday’s meeting. “Last year for the first time, we did not offer pay increases because we do not have the funding to do so. We have taken action and it is not enough.”
Dozens of teachers and families implored the board to remain at the current campus, keep all students together and avoid layoffs.
“Please don’t tear it apart,” ASDB teacher Kerry Hodgkinson told the board.
“Students are not separate. They are not separate sitting in a van today — learning together, helping each other,” said Hodgkinson who teaches both vision and hearing-impaired students. “Realize, we work together. We are better together.”
ASDB has 114 students currently. Its 56-acre campus on West Speedway Boulevard was built for about 400 students more than 100 years ago. A second ASDB campus operates in Phoenix. The Tucson campus includes grades K-12. It has day students and also boards some learners.
Third grader Nani Peach is a day student. She came to ASDB from the Tucson Unified School District where her needs as a visually-impaired student with autism were unmet, her parents said.
At ASDB, Nani found music. And math.
“Now, I’m gonna be in the ‘Wizard of Oz.’ I’m gonna sing. And I’m gonna act,” Nani said earlier this week. “This is my first musical.”
Nani said she did not feel good about any school move because “we get to be pushed back and the access to a blind teacher, it’s very limited.
“I don’t even know if they know about Braille,” she said. “I’m a very good reader now. I like to do contractions and stuff,” said Nani, adding she wants to be a teacher someday.
ASDB educators and staff, many of whom also attended the school, showed up in force at community meetings throughout the last few weeks as layoffs were announced. The layoffs include 50 with permanent jobs and range from a music teacher to a physical therapist, custodians and groundskeeper and would take effect June 30.
In early January, families of ASDB students were told by Reichman that she would sign a five-year lease with the Amphitheater Public Schools to move the school to Copper Creek Elementary in Oro Valley.
However, the lease had not been signed as of Thursday morning, Amphi officials told Arizona Luminaria.
Families found out about the move through a Jan. 8 video, sent via email, saying ASDB faces a projected $3 million deficit and must cut costs.
On Monday, 15 families filed a lawsuit, saying the transition violates state and federal law. The complaint alleges the school did not give families enough input and notice and says the ASDB administration moved forward with plans to close programs for blind and visually impaired students while “maintaining or prioritizing programming for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.”
On Wednesday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey T. Bergin declined the plea to delay Thursday’s vote.
The families will next file a new lawsuit and a temporary restraining order, said lawyer Melissa Rueschhoff of Signature Law Partners PLLC, who represents the families.
___
This story was originally published by Arizona Luminaria and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.