Thread by @Deaftrav

This is the start of a series of tweets I plan to do on a human right crisis in NFLD: special needs education. To be honest it's coast to coast but #nfld is in pretty bad shape for #deafeducation and #HumanRights

But first... monks blend tea. Hot.

The reason for a centralised Deaf school is that resources to educate the Deaf is extremely limited. #nfld in its infinite wisdom decided that local communities had the resources to mainstream Deaf children and only needed to be checked on once in awhile.

And thus they closed the Deaf school, making it almost impossible to get in. @NicoleMarshNL was one of the last students who got in. NFLD cited that the school's enrollment was dropping and closed it after adding barriers.

This resulted in isolation and overstretched resources that couldn't follow the progress of Deaf children in classrooms without a communication method that was actually reliable.
Then the Churchills came along and their son discovered how brutal this method is.

So from my understanding, pre hearing... that the Newfoundland government by way of their English district school board is being sued for deliberately isolating Deaf children. Why? We will find out through this hearing.

Will @GovNL pay attention or allow their school board to pay lawyers a ridiculous sum of money to defend against this? If I recall correctly it's 2800 an hour for their lead lawyer on this.

Ah, Tea's brewing, video link open. Just waiting on admission to the virtual room.

And we are live. 9:02 am. This hearing is part of a larger procress against the English district school board. We've been asked to be respectful to the process and the parties involved. That may be a challenge for Deaf victims of this process

We aren't allowed screenshots or videos. But it's good to see this process and @kimagreening .

Human rights committee notices that this has generated a large amount of interest from the public. They're outlining their role and limits.

Tribunal has stated there's a large amount of interest in the outcome of this hearing.

The tribunal stated that @kimagreening must prove that Carter has been denied access to meaningful services. Then @GovNL by way of their school board must justify their discrimination

It'd be nice if the subtitles didn't write over itself. Sigh.

Access still has a long way to go. At least there's an interpreter?

The tribunal issues the challenge to @GovNL that they must justify not allowing Carter Churchill access to meaningful education. They also seem to suggest that there is a considerable burden on students to get meaningful accommodations. This is true coast to coast.

Interesting comment regarding economy. Does that mean @GovNL can prove they cannot afford to provide meaningful education to special needs children and thus #discrimination is legal?

Interesting. One of the interpreters has her arm in a sling. This isn't going to be easy...

@kimagreening argues that the board @GovNL admitted that the quality was not good but didn't see anything wrong with providing a substandard level of education to a #disabled child.

Flashback to my days when I was told I'd amount to nothing because I was #deaf

@GovNL English board had experts raising the alarm that they were failing #deaf children and thus they were failing to learn language to communicate with their classmates.
This has been going on since 2011 at least.

Board response is that it's complicated. The Churchills have a lot of love for their son. The teachers are highly skilled and did their best for Carter but no discrimination occur. The response outlines that the inquiry is a narrow scope.

And we've lost the feed. Dang.

Ah it's back. Board is pointing out that plans are adjusted when they don't work. Plan is developed by the experts and the parents need to sign off on it. Then it's put in place with a teacher of the Deaf support system.

@GovNL school district lawyer is outlining the support system provided. However they don't mention how often that support was there.

The board argues that it was undue hardship to provide the accommodations @kimagreening demanded of her son. Interesting approach that I'm hearing here. That the resources needed to educate a deaf child is undue hardship for the @GovNL

On paper it seems the board did provide reasonable accommodations.

So @kimagreening needs to prove that it wasn't that way in reality. She's up first following opening statement.

I see we are using bibles to swear an oath.

@kimagreening now being questioned by the @GovNL lawyer representing the board. He is setting up the boundaries and that she can pause at any time if this gets stressful.

Defining iep. It's a plan that professionals develop for special needs children. It's a living document that can be changed as needed to meet the needs of the child.

Pointing out that there's no asl included in the 2013 document when Carter was 2.
There's a lot of documents

I like the current interpreter. Very expressive and demonstrating the mumbling the lawyers are doing as they look for specific notes. It's good to include that kind of activity.

@kimagreening disrupts the definition of the skill set of a professional staff. The DHH teacher kept having to ask others how to sign basic ASL signs such as the colors.

Kim said she thought the board was hiring competent teachers. She now feels that wasn't the case

@kimagreening outlines the shortcoming of Carter asl teacher in 2016. Seems the Churchill approach is that on paper accommodations were met but in reality those providing were not qualified to do so.

@kimagreening argues that everyone in the board involved with her son knew that he wasn't getting appropriate language (if any at all) because she spoke to them and asks a good question.

Why is a #deaf teacher called a #hearingitinerary? That's a mindset that Deaf children need to be taught to be hearing. Interesting question from @kimagreening

@kimagreening letting loose nearly 9 years of anger out on the lawyer because Carter isn't learning language at the school. That he isn't having a language foundation necessary to thrive. To say she's upset is an understatement.

@kimagreening points out that the @GovNL English board approach was what was easiest for them, not Carter. That they ignored the Deaf teacher recommendations
Lawyer has his armed crossed as Kim expresses her anger and frustration. Clearly uncomfortable.

This is bringing back a lot of memories for Deaf people, myself included.

5 minute break.

And we're back.

@kimagreening argues that 2 hours every couple of weeks is not teaching Carter language. Board said Carter couldn't follow three steps directions. Kim responds that it was because neither he or the teacher knew how to sign the directions in full.

@kimagreening realized after the three step direction failure that she needed to document this. Seems she realized in 2014 that this was going to end up in court.

@kimagreening points out that it's fine to teach him how to type but what's the point of he isn't learning language.

Board @GovNL responds that they removed that teacher and admits they didn't do so quickly.

@kimagreening mentions that the board thought Cartrr had a severe intellectual disability. But questions that because how could said assessment be made without language?

Subtitles is struggling.

So it's a little bit of a challenge to follow this hearing but there'd still an interpreter. There's a set of challenges.

3 weeks Carter got, at the end of the school of full time support.

Board provided tutoring for the summer to try to catch up. Props there I suppose. It shows that the board knew it was falling behind with Carter

Lawyer for @GovNL brings up the psychologist report says that full time support is recommended with a deaf support worker fluent in asl. Language still needs to be brought up to an acceptable level

@kimagreening asks why is it okay that we allow a child in our school system and not give them language, to treat them lesser than an able bodied child? The teacher didn't even know the sign for the colours

@kimagreening stresses that no parent should think "does my kid need a language acquisition teacher? Be with their peers? Have a specialized teacher?" It should be properly provided in a reasonable time without debate - my opinion

@kimagreening pleased with east point. Carter was in a clas with peers and there was appropriate resources provided.

Problem was that east point had no idea how to grade him. Thus unable to provide appropriate resources to get him caught up.

However by the end of grade 4 the report card was still incomplete. So @kimagreening and her husband met with the principal. Apparently insufficient evidence means the student doesn't meet the curriculum. He's going to grade 6 and isn't educated enough.

Switched now to the Churchill lawyers.

Strawberry marsh road? Is that correct?

Oh shoutout to me. @kimagreening mentions the letter to the board where I tear them a new one on Carter education. Seems @GovNL isn't happy with me? Apparently that letter got the process started. #deaf people. Your support goes a long way when it comes to this

Language assessment needs to be done in #americansignlanguage for Deaf children who sign to determine their language levels.

@kimagreening asks why does it make sense that we don't do asl support but we do speech for Deaf children. Where is the rationale in that?

Carter has only seen a teacher for sign language once a month.

@kimagreening talks about how Carter doesn't know concepts that he should had learned in school. Using a glass of water as an example. If he doesn't know the language behind it how can he be assessed on Language without that foundation?

@kimagreening feels that the board thought they were going above and beyond working with Carter yet the evidence seems to suggest that they weren't. It's a difficult mindset to combat.

Why was an iep not working? Because the process is meaningless as demonstrated by the failure to provide appropriate resources.

Todd Churchill is up. We were supposed to pause for lunch (breakfast in my case) but they feel they can finish before lunch.

Todd Churchill before this was famous for the backyard rink in st. John.

Todd points out that Carter was socially and lingually isolated from his peers in his class.

Talking about a educational task force in 2017 on the deficiencies in special needs education.

Todd thought the teacher was qualified because she taught at the Deaf school but was never actually tested on her ASL skills

Todd asks how is a deaf child supposed to learn language without an approved asl curriculum?

Good question right there. Government responds that there was no curriculum at the Deaf school

Todd responds that Carter still would had gotten language and interaction with his peers.

Interesting comment from the government "well we didn't provide it before. Why should we now?"

Todd asks how is it a valid assessment and compares it to a non English speaker teacher assessing a English child on English.

Good point.

@GovNL lawyer asks Todd why he didn't ask for asl resources back in kindergarten. He replies "we didn't know about these resources and we thought the government would actually provide appropriate resources"
This exposes a serious flaw in Deaf education and language support

Todd points out that Carter gets one hour a week of actual education.

In 2011 Carter was 4 months old. There wasn't a need for that kind of support because he was 4 months old.

Todd says any staff of the board with a reasonable level of intelligence would have the intuition to think to provide language support to a child by an expert who actually knows the language.

@GovNL board hired educational interpreters without testing their aptitude. How are they educational interpreters if we don't know their skill level?

Is it bad that I was hoping we could take that lunch break so I could get myself breakfast? I'm hungry but I intend to watch this hearing... let's hope I don't need a snickers bar.

@NLhumanrights I appreciate the intepreter. The subtitles aren't the best as they overlap. However it's tough to tell whose saying what. Perhaps improvement can be made there?

Not sure why lawyer fees are being brought up. How's that relevant to the churchills case?

Todd points out that the 26,000 gofundme has been exceeded by a lot. Here's the link to that gofundme if you want to help.

gofundme.com/f/zg3jen-help-…

@kimagreening and Todd feels that to get a future for Cartrr it will cost about 100,000 dollars.

@kimagreening wonders why they have spend tens of thousands of dollars for access to a fundamental right.

And on break til 1 pm newfoundland. 11.30 eastern

Waiting for the hearing to resume. The video is playing elevator music. Not sure why. It's a deaf audience... right?

Spoke with an individual whose aunt taught at the Deaf school in st. John. He talked about the resources that were around 25 to 30 years ago. He was shocked at the drastic difference and drop in service quality.

It's only day one and I think I wrote a novel already. I apologized for the long read. I'll provide a summary when it's done.

@NLhumanrights the music is catchy but there's nothing for us visual deaf people. It's just a white page with a logo. Feeling left out here. :(

I thought we were back but it was a muted reply saying that there's a half hour delay

Thanks to @NicoleMarshNL for telling me that as the video was muted and only up for ten seconds @NLhumanrights

And we are back to the @NLhumanrights hearing on carter vs the @GovNL English district school board. The tribunal has been good at trying to be accommodating and receiving feedback.

Thank you to @NLhumanrights for looking into possible resolutions to the captioning issue. Transcripts could help post sessions if possible.

Colleen Jane moist is up. District lawyer reminds of boundaries and that it's okay to pause. Colleen is clarifying a response in her written statement. She is retired and has not been involved in recent IEP for carter? She has a master's in deaf education.

Prior to Colleen moving back to st. John area there were no asl classes offered and she couldn't upgrade her skills. There's no question on her educational background as a teacher. However her asl skills have not been tested. She has taken courses though.

She believes she's qualified to teach carter as his ASL skills are below hers.

Interesting response...

Concerned that the teachers were not able to provide enough education to the students. They needed to be together as there weren't enough teachers. Carter wasn't her student but was impacted by the teachers being stretched thin. Carter isn't the only student impacted

In 2017 idea was to provide two hours a day per student of teaching.

Not sure how that's helping the student... Would you tolerate your child in school only being taught for two hours?

@kimagreening lawyer is up. Asks Colleen if carter language skills improved would it be inappropriate for her to teach him at her current ASL skills. She replies "I'm retired" and her skills have decreased. She can still communicate with him.

Colleen says she still take ASL courses and loves working with students who are deaf and hard of hearing. She paid out of pocket for courses. School district didn't offer refreshers to keep staff up to date on ASL. Language is lost if not used daily.

Lawyer asks if school district for @GovNL took steps to fill the gap from retiring staff. Colleen implies that the district didn't feel it was important, in her observation from appearances. She wonders why the different standards for deaf vs hearing for qualified teachers

@kimagreening lawyer asks if this was normal. Colleen replied yes all the time. District said too many needs and could not provide a level of service carter needed. Proposed solution was a central classroom where that could be met. Aka Deaf school (which is closed)

Colleen asks if we bring hearing kids who speak English together... Why can't we bring deaf children together and teach them in a manner where they learn a visual language they need to develop emotional and social skills.

Without ASL how can the Deaf child learn English and function in society? Colleen tells us about the consequences of language deprivation.

Human right panel is asking questions now

Colleen last language proficiency was done in 1993. Her skills have declined over the years due to insufficient use of ASL. Hence her refresher courses. Colleen says she wants to be sure she was doing her job correctly.

@NLhumanrights tribunal asks Colleen if she was tested for asl proficiency since 1993. She said no and neither was she asked by the board.

Room falls silent for a minute as the panel digest this disturbing piece of information.

@NLhumanrights adjourned until tomorrow 9 am Newfoundland time.

Thank you for reading this wall of text

Summary: board didn't check qualifications of staff or provide accessible services. Kids were isolated and staff have been ringing the alarm bells at the school district level to no avail. Board also didn't require staff to keep up to date on ASL