Letter to Secretary Paige

Below is the text of the letter to Secretary Paige:

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/

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