ROUGH EDITED COPY

EHDI 2019
TOPICAL SESSION 4 - INTERNATIONAL A
BALANCING BOTH WORLDS:  HOW TO INTEGRATE A LISTENING AND SPOKEN LANGUAGE PROGRAM INTO AN ASL/ENGLISH STATE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF
MARCH 5, 2019
9:40 A.M. CST

CART PROVIDED BY:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC
www.CaptionFamily.com

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This is being provided in a rough-draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.  
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	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Am I all set to get started?  Yeah?  Everybody ready?  Okay.  Perfect.  Thank you.  So thank you for joining me this morning.  I really appreciate everyone being here.  My name is Jessica Holst and I am from Buffalo, New York.  We have a -- in Buffalo, New York we are 1 of 11 4201 Schools in New York State so New York is unique in we have 11 legislatively set up schools for children with disabilities and eight of them are specifically for families of children with reduced hearing.  
	In -- and Buffalo is one and our closest next is Rochester and the rest are down surrounding the city area.  
	But at the St. Mary's School for the Deaf, in 2014, we opened an oral option that would go alongside our traditional ASL/English track and we're here to tell you a little bit about that today.  I'm a speech-language pathologist by discipline.  I attended Nazareth College in Rochester, New York which has a specialization program joint with NTID.  For speech-language pathologists that want to work specifically for children with hearing loss I also have my LSL but previous to working in this program I worked in our signing program so to me it's important to put all of your tools in your bag and make sure when you're working with families with children with newly diagnosed hearing loss you're able to afford them all of those opportunities because you are knowledgeable that's what I'm here to tell you about today.  St. Mary's School for the Deaf is also CESD accredited we were originally accredited in 2013 and just finished the reaccreditation for another five years in 2018.  
	So here is a little bit of history about our communication approach at St. Mary's School for the Deaf.  The school was set up in 1853 and was originally established as an oral education philosophy, as many schools were at that time.  
	In 1972 following national trends, St. Mary's switched into a total communication philosophy which was utilized until January of 2018.  
	In 2014 we opened what we call the Educational and Auditory Resources for Sound it's been coined as our EARS program which provided an oral track for birth to five years.  And then in 2017 I apologize our total communication program transitioned to an ASL/English so that separation of language is more clearly delineating what our expectation and approach was for families.  
	So why auditory, why now?  As we were working in our school and many schools for the Deaf, our program attendance was decreasing.  In addition, we were following some of those local trends, 90% of hearing loss are --% of children with hearing loss are born to hearing parents and they will participate in that hearing culture so we wanted to be sensitive to that and offer opportunities and choice for our families in our area.  But we wanted to do so in a culturally sensitive way.  
	As CESD came in we were also looking at our viability long-term because we are in New York State where there are a lot of competing schools for the Deaf, we -- a lot of the schools want to make sure that they are offering unique opportunities and staying current in addition.  
	So at the time we had a cochlear implant committee.  How many of you have committees at your school?  Like we go way to way more committee meetings than we possibly need to so we had a cochlear implant committee at the time talking about how we would better address our cochlear implant students and then discussion of an oral opportunity came up.  Actually from our parent educator, who was working with our families.  
	So we started to do some research.  And look at what that meant for our school.  And the first place that we started was with our stakeholder group.  
	So looking at our Board Members, our leadership, our Deaf adults, both our Deaf adults that worked in our school as well as our alumni and our graduates, we wanted to see that this was a viable option our community would accept because if we don't get buy-in from our existing community we don't want to fracture our internal school and the culture within the school, as well.  
	So this is Pamela Rohring if some people know Pam, she did attend Gallaudet, she's our ASL specialist at St.Mary's she was kind enough to do an interview she couldn't be here with us today she talks about her views and the views of the Deaf Community as we started our discussions with opening an oral program.  
	>> Thank you for being willing to participate in this interview.  We're happy to have you here.  
	I have three questions for you today.  
	The first one is as a Deaf individual, and a graduate of the school, what was your first reaction upon learning of an auditory verbal program opening at St. Mary's?  
	>> Thank you for asking me for the interview and I'm more than happy to answer any questions.  
	When we found out that St. Mary's was going to be offering the auditory verbal program at the school.  My initial reaction was kind of surprised I wasn't exactly sure why they were doing it and through additional discussions and research I think it's a great opportunity.  We have the EARS program set up.  It addresses specific students.  Either Deaf and Hard of Hearing.  They have an oral approach.  It benefits them it can benefit students I think it's a great opportunity.  They are able to interact with a variety of different students, we have our Deaf our hard of hearing students, students who commune through sign or sign support and I think it's -- I believe we can strongly grow the program.
	>> The second question why do you think it's important to offer parents and families choices when it comes to servicing and educating their Deaf and Hard of Hearing children?  
	>> I think it's important for parents and whether the parents be Deaf or hearing themselves, when they have a child who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, if they can have access to an auditory or verbal program where choice is offered to them it's a way of educating them and it's a way to show what St. Mary's offers we have an additional program where kids can learn speech and they can learn -- or whatever different classroom activities are involved, they can benefit through speech and access to sound, they can learn words, vocabulary that way.  And also we allow them to interact with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing children that use sign that can be in the classrooms that are supported by sign.  We do have a large number of hard-of-hearing students here at the school.  And parents can see that there's other avenues.  Whatever benefits the child as the child grows is what's important.  We need to be able to offer them options and prepare them for growing up and going out into the world you can't just have one method to teach you have to have a variety of methods and approaches and expose children to different ways and you have to decide what will benefit that specific child and what will be the best opportunity for them in their future.  
	And it's great here because they can interact with Deaf and Hard of Hearing students who do sign.  They can interact in gym class, in the library.  They can interact in the cafeteria, in the hallways.  They have an opportunity not only to participate in their program but to be exposed to other communication.  And have friends and peers that communicate both ways.
	>> Great, thank you.  And the last question is, what do you think the future of Deaf Education will look like in 5, 10 or 20 years?  
	>> That is a really tough question.  I don't know if I can answer it.  But I'll try my best.  I mean, as a professional teacher, I know in like today's Deaf Education that's offered out there, we offer many different approaches, many different ways.  We have total communication.  We have oral programs, auditory programs.  We offer such a variety now.  I think it's really important to offer a variety of programs.  Whether the child be Deaf or Hard of Hearing, in 5, 10, 20 years, I'm sure those programs will still be there.  I mean perhaps those programs will continue to grow.  Perhaps the variety will still be there.  
	I do know that -- I know mainstream is also an option, as well.  I really think St. Mary's is the best way it is the Least Restrictive Environment.  They have access to language here and sign language we have the auditory verbal, the auditory oral I think it benefits the Deaf or hard-of-hearing child or the child with an implant or the child who wants an oral only program, I really think those options will continue and as a professional teacher who works with children, I mean, I need to modify my teaching methods to benefit each individual child and I think it's important to do so whether the child be Deaf, hard of hearing or auditory verbal.
	>> Thank you again so much, Pamela.
	>> You're welcome, thank you.  
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  So Pam has been an amazing support for our program as our ASL specialist.  
	She also is our first point of contact for our Deaf Mentor Program, which we'll talk a little bit about later.  
	But making sure that we continue to have discussions with our stakeholder group, not just in that year that we set up but as we continue and we move forward.  
	A program is only relevant when it's going to evolve and meet the needs of the students, meet the needs of the staff and make sure we are having open discussions about concerns as well as what things are going well.  
	So when we talked about setting up for success when you're opening an auditory approach in a traditionally signing or manual school these were kind of a summary of what we paid attention to in the beginning.  As we said, stakeholder perspectives.  Board Members.  Alumni.  Leadership.  Our early education team.  Our audiology program.  A lot of people came to the table and shared their discussions and it wasn't until we got a verbal okay from for example our unions, our Alumni Board, written letters in support and discussion, as well we didn't want to move forward if we didn't have support across the table.  
	4201 School models we went and toured different 4201 models of the eight 4201 Schools that serviced children with reduced hearing four of them at the time had auditory tracks so we went down in the area took a bus and toured all of the programs, looked at the physical setup, talked to the leadership, asked them to be honest about what went well and what were the challenges.  If they had to do it over again what might be a point of improvement.  AVT membership the school put out a competitive bid for a consultant and hired a certified LSL consultant to work with the school looking at what was needed in the program and physical setup as well as work with the staff through ongoing mentorship.  
	>> LSL.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Listening and Spoken Language specialist.
	>> Thank you.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Yeah, as well as to work with our staff.  And that was organized in as a support that would last over a three year period.  It wasn't something we were going to do in a short time.  It was a longer range commitment.  
	Team member identification and professional development.  Even though it was an internal, all of the staff that works in our oral program were internal employees at the time that were working in our signing program at the time.  What we did -- we did go through an interview process and had selection and discussion related to that.  
	And then there was a strong professional development commitment for those staff in and above their current job requirements at the time.  That staff would require to work in our summer program for professional development purposes during that six-week period prior.  
	So there was a strong understanding that there needed to be specific knowledge steps here.  
	Physical program setup.  Looking at how do we create -- we didn't want a division.  
	So we wanted where the oral program was set up to be visible to the rest of the school.  To be comfortable to the rest of the school.  It wasn't just going to be oh, the oral kids are over there.  And nobody goes in that area.  They were going to be a part of the larger school community and be well traveled.  
	And then also looking at we have one room we set up that looked like home so if they were going to be doing clinic-based services and weren't in the home there was that comfort because we were obviously bringing in the younger little ones.  
	We talked about our role out of offerings and tried to have very honest discussions about what was realistic.  One could be -- what could be open, what could be offered what it would look like it was kind of that idea if you build it they will come but you don't want to build it too soon if they are not going to come so how do you measure that and how do you make sure that you're not putting the cart before the horse so to speak.  
	We spent a lot of time in outreach.  We visited area pediatricians offices.  We went to ENT offices.  We contacted and connected with our early intervention officials.  We serviced several different counties so this took a lot of time and it took a lot of extra effort from that staff that was identified again.  We were doing this afterhours.  We were doing this in the summer.  
	And then a development of succession of goals so from the committee work that set this up perhaps it wasn't realistic to roll out with all of those components that were desired.  But we don't want those to fall by the wayside.  When are we going to bring them in?  So we developed that, as well.  
	The next thing I wanted to talk to you about today was developing clear program expectations.  
	So we wanted to make sure we had discussions with families as they came in that there was a clear expectation of what the oral program looked like and what our manual program looked like.  What that entails.  What was requested of parents.  And how could we make that look at equal as possible.  
	So truly the family was choosing a communication approach.  They weren't choosing a component of a program that they preferred.  
	And that took a lot of discussion with our early childhood team, as well.  So this document was developed at that time to delineate our early childhood services and requirements as an education tool for families.  This document is ever changing.  It evolves with the program as we grow and as we adjust and it's something that our team continues to look at over time.  
	So looking at program components, this was the fun part, when you're developing a new program, you're not set under the standards of the way things have always been which sometimes when you're looking at adding new things can be a challenge when you're trying to get buy-in from more senior staff.  
	But the way that our program rolled out and we were set up is our infant toddler program was birth to 18.  Had a monthly home based auditory verbal therapy offering and weekly one-on-one center-based AVT offerings, as well.  And this could flip based on the need of the families.  Some of our families come quite a distance.  But we wanted to make sure they had a connection to the school.  All of their audiological needs were covered in the school, as well.  
	18 to 36 months we added a weekly alternating home based or center based.  We added an integrated toddler playgroup with hearing peers.  So we utilized staff members' children that would come in.  And they would be our hearing peer group.  
	We found that the staff loved this.  They loved that they could bring their kids to work.  They loved that they could expose their kids to what they did during the day.  And we developed some really wonderful relationships with staff members we actually may not have interacted with because they were bringing their little munchkins to us.  And leaving them for us to help take care of.  And they were wonderful models for our student group, as well.  We also do have a mainstreaming opportunity and depending on the age we developed a collaborative relationship with UP child care center this was very strategically chosen a lot of the children that go to the child care center at the University of Buffalo are very high language models themselves so we wanted our kids to be surrounded by strong language models and set up a collaborative relationship that depending on the student need at the time we could go into any of our classrooms and our kids would go into either the toddler room, the preschool room or that preK 4 year room in addition.  
	At three to five years we added our full day center-based program with the spoken language TOD.  Our students had depending on need weekly AVT sessions that were an hour in length.  
	And all of our families are offered weekly sessions, as well.  
	It was astounding from the beginning I have a parent up here and we'll talk to her in a little bit how many families made a commitment to come to those sessions which traditionally wasn't a part of our early education program.  We had family involvement but not to this level.  
	If we're going to have a theme throughout this presentation I think expectation is the biggest piece.  If we set the expectation, the family really met it.  And as a result they became the biggest advocate for their child.  They felt ownership over their child's education and over their child's success and development.  
	And that's not specific to Listening and Spoken Language I'll talk a little bit more.  That also flowed over into our manual program.  
	So we also have our visiting center-based hearing peers.  
	At that point we had a meeting opportunity so all of our kids go out to the child care center every single Thursday.  They go with our staff members.  When our staff members are making recommendations about is mainstreaming -- when should the child mainstream.  Are they a candidate for mainstreaming.  What supports will they need in mainstreaming, we're making very informed decisions because we're seeing them in the larger group, these classes, the four-year preK class for example has 18 kids.  And when we go in as staff, we back off.  They are interacting with the hearing children in the room.  And their teacher is their lead teacher.  
	We also have monthly community field trips.  And our Family Day Program.  Which I'll talk a little bit more about later.  
	So we wanted to highlight program components, our audiology program expanded as a result of opening the oral program so when we started the oral program, our audiology program started in Newborn Hearing Screening and diagnostic testing we do provide these services as a community offering because we're a state school so we don't bill through insurance with that we were doing our outreach we connected with a lot of our area facilities and for those families who had insurance concerns and had to do follow-up testing we now had an opportunity for support which is a big need in our area.  Pediatric care for fitting and programming we also improved our BAHA monitoring services.  
	We opened a cochlear implant services we started doing candidacy.  We were able to do initial simulation and ongoing mapping which were things we weren't doing prior to the opening of this program.  This benefits the school as a whole.  This wasn't something that was only offered to the oral program students.  
	In addition, monitoring classroom acoustics with soundfield systems.  Onsite testing and repairs.  We do weekly middle ear testing.  We made sure we had loaner devices if the child was choosing our program and their technology goes down we need access to that technology it's not realistic for them to be in the classroom without it and then strengthening collaborative relationships with our local ENT practices, as well.  
	I don't want to read aloud.  
	So this is my favorite part of the program.  These are our family supports.  I think if we're going to talk about the strength of the program, this would be it.  
	We started off with a Family Day event.  When we first started it was weekly.  Every single Wednesday a family member or a caregiver was invited to come into school.  We tried to schedule their weekly AVT session on this day if it was possible but in addition we did a whole group playgroup session.  We provided language model and teaching on how to interact in a larger group.  And also the parents got to know each other it's to support them socially and emotionally and a comfort with the kids to be around a larger group of kids as well so when going out and doing playgroup events with family and friends this mixed with that.  Our Family Day was not limited to just as I said the parents we made sure we have offerings we had a grandparent day event where the grandparents came in because the families said this is great we get this support but our extended family members they need this support too it's not enough to say this is what we should be doing so we made sure we offered those opportunities in addition.  
	As part of our Family Day offering I'm going to jump down we also had a Lunch & Learn Series so at that time the kiddoes went off with teacher assistants and the adults were able to spend some adult-to-adult time in the beginning that was based around different information topics.  Different -- we taught around how to make friends.  And then it evolved also to different social opportunities.  
	The individuals at the table got to know each other and were given the opportunity just to connect with each other.  
	So as a parent of a very young child, you sometimes forget what it feels like to just be an adult.  And take a shower and brush your teeth and this was important for them.  It was really important for them.  
	We started our Deaf Mentor Program.  That was two years ago now.  And actually resulted after the program I saw Tommy and Betsy's program the first day they -- first year they did it as a small group session I really wanted to mimic something like that we'll talk a little bit more about that program.  It was grown in time.  But that was an additional add-on that's been really exciting to see.  
	And they have early childhood for the working family members we wanted to make sure they also had access to what we were doing so one time a quarter we would have an evening with early childhood it would be a play opportunity and have dinner provided and either be a teaching opportunity or music class.  
	Which brings me back to we had a Music Together offering.  Is anyone familiar with what Music Together is?  Yes?  Okay.  
	So I grew up in a very musical family.  I love music.  We -- I utilized it a lot in my sessions all of my parents sing to their kids more than they probably want to.  
	But when we first developed we looked at how we could improve family and child interaction and then also from the speech side of it look at tonal competence and rhythm competencies because that in music really transfers nicely into your conversations.  So two of our therapists myself and teachers of the deaf-blind we became certified of teaching these classes and it's been a wonderful program.  This is not performance based.  It's not about performance.  It's about enjoying music in any way you can.  And develop that as you see fit.  
	For community education, we have EARS Newsletters again our Evening with Early Childhood it's open to the larger community not just for our families and then establish partnerships.  
	So for Music Together, this is a picture of some of the events.  As you can see, our kids really took to it.  
	This little munchkin here, Kayleigh, this is Kayleigh's mom, she often performs at home with her stuffed animals.  But there's a lot of competence that develops in music and the willingness to try new sounds or play different instruments.  
	And within here the Music Together curriculum offers exposure to different languages.  The collections as they are developed offer exposure to different rhythmic patterns.  
	It provides major music exposure it provides minor music exposure.  And we get into our speech and language development.  
	But the family members, as we say, your role here is for your child to see you enjoy music.  And to experience it as you see fit.  
	So these are some really fun things that we do on Wednesdays.  
	Here is the more information about our leverage and learn series.  One of our -- Lunch & Learn Series.  One of our families she has two daughters and has been with us from the beginning, she is culturally Deaf so she signs and her little munchkin is developing bilingual but we want to make sure we develop accessibility for anyone who chooses this program as you can see we utilize separation of language so for certain components we have an interpreter other components with the Lunch & Learn Series we have direct communication so here are some different documents we have utilized.  Reading of familiar sounds.  Audiogram.  Realistic expectations.  We cover behavior, hearing, all of that.  
	For our Deaf Mentor Program, we started with monthly visits to our Lunch & Learn Series from our Deaf adults throughout the community.  And that's a little bit of what you see here.  
	I'll show you on the next slide.  I meet with all of the Deaf adults before they come in.  I gave them a background of the families that are going to be at the table.  So that they have a little bit of an understanding of what the family makeup is as well as the history of the child.  
	And then they also pick a topic that they want to discuss that's near and dear to their heart.  A takeaway for the parents to have.  
	In addition, we also have part of our Deaf Mentor are older students in the school so many of the students in our middle and high school program have very strong oral skills.  When they go home they use their oral skills with their parents.  When they come to school, they are signers.  So as part of that program, we have students that are transitioned to independence program can choose the infant program as their experience.  Their work experience.  
	So it can prepare them after they graduate to go out and work in a child care setting.  
	Or sometimes they will come down and visit.  As you can see here is -- Clipper can go visit and read a book they are getting experience of Deaf Mentors of a younger generation as well as an older generation and we're hopeful their experience is to the individuality of what is to be done.  Every adult experience is very different.  Their upbringing is very different.  Their choice of how they communicated with their family is very different and we wanted to expose our families to that to show different pictures of what their childhood could become.  
	This is examples of some of the documents that we develop when talking with our Deaf Mentors before they come into the program and it guides our discussion.  It's very low key when they come to our Lunch & Learn Series.  Growing up with the Deaf child.  Your background.  What you experienced.  Some challenges, some strengths.  And then the questions here at the bottom, those were developed by our parents in the program as what they wanted to get out of the Deaf Mentor Program.  
	Our first year, these were some takeaways from the Deaf Mentors that came in and spoke to the parents.  One of them spoke about prioritizing direct communication with your child and making sure it's not the role of just one parent Mom has to have direct communication Dad has to have direct communication the sib lipping has direct communication.  That Deaf Mentor shared that it was really her mom that invested in that experience with her and she didn't have the same level of communication with other members of her family.  
	Assuming making sure that you're not assuming that one particular method or technology is the best for your child.  Actually ask your child what they are experiencing.  And why they prefer what they prefer.  
	So these were just take takeaways that you have these slides you can look through for time's purpose.  
	Our Evening with Early Childhood really was a hit.  It provided an opportunity for those members of the family that weren't available during the school day to be a part of their child's educational experience and also provided an opportunity for the larger school community to come in and attend.  So we did some music classes.  We did different teaching topics.  We also had an adult only time where the kids went off and did crafts and so on and so forth so we provided several opportunities for the adults just to talk to other adults and create supported relationships that they can lean on in the years to come.  
	So this is our newsletter.  We started publishing these quarterly and these went out as different educational opportunities.  They were set up for the community really.  They went out to pediatricians, ENT offices, those who could be different referral opportunities.  
	They had educational components of what was new to the program, what we were doing at that time.  And then we started adding in family reflections.  
	So I want to introduce Jessica who is a parent of one of the children who is in the program.  Her daughter is now mainstreaming.  But this particular newsletter shared her family reflection at the time.  
	So I gave Jessica two questions to answer for you today.  And I'm just going to give you a little bit of a background.  
	But one was how did the EARS program prepare you as a mainstreaming child to connect with hearing peers and to be successful in the hearing world?  
	And then how did the EARS program prepare you to be part of the larger Deaf Community?  So that as Kayleigh grows she's able to maintain and develop that identity for herself, as well.  Do you want to stand up or sit?  What would you like to do?  
	>> I can stand here.  Wherever is fine.  I'll come this way.  So I'm out of the way.  
	>> How do you spell Kayleigh's name.
	>> K‑a‑y‑l‑e‑i‑g‑h.  We didn't think about simplicity at that stage.  
	So there's a picture you'll see in a little bit it took me back quiet when she was not -- Kayleigh was three years old in that picture she's now seven in first grade but that picture was ironically the first day -- I think that was the first day we toured the EARS program.  Prior to moving to Buffalo, New York we were located any different area of the state so when Kayleigh was born unfortunately she was late identified she has a bilateral profound hearing loss so late identified, late access to amplification.  The area we were living in at the time really had limited resources for families like ours.  So my husband and I kind of sat down one night and we were looking through things and at that point she was severely delayed and expressive and receptive skills -- in expressive and receptive skills so at three years old it was very obvious we couldn't continue the route we were on so we started looking at schools for the Deaf and oral options.  We really tried to limit ourselves to the East Coast.  Just so we didn't travel too far from families.  But the one thing that we really were sort of stuck on at that point was she had not chose a communication mode at that point.  
	So as parents, we already struggled with wanting to try to make that choice for her.  We didn't really feel comfortable doing that.  But we also -- she was not leading us one way or the other, which we felt like we were like, okay, what are you going to pick?  Looking at her like what is your communication mode?  What are you most comfortable with?  
	I'll never forget when we toured St. Mary's, the biggest thing that stuck out to us was if we move here, we don't have to move again.  Every other option that we had found at the time they had both programs but they were not physically close to each other.  So it was, you know, we would have to move in between the two locations, potentially driving an hour to one or an hour to the other.  And then wait to see if that worked.  St. Mary's at the time where the EARS program was located, the classroom for the total communication approach was directly across the hall.  
	So we had spoke to the director of -- no matter which program you choose, if it's not what fits Kayleigh, she will walk across the hall, you will sign some papers and your day will continue and to us that was really important that we were not, A, making that choice for her.  And B, we were not moving again.  We were moving once and that was it.  
	So that's sort of an overview of Kayleigh.  
	And then the questions, it's funny, they are -- I could say so much about the program.  But I think the thing we really found for our family was everything -- every component that the EARS program had really built on empowering us as parents to become the experts on Kayleigh.  We had all of these questions that up until this point nobody could answer for us.  We're Googling, we're buying books but the books and Google didn't know Kayleigh and our family as Jessica pointed out there were more opportunities than we could ever imagined to sit down and talk one-on-one they experienced Kayleigh and experienced our family so we knew when we were getting answers they were not answers that somebody else were getting.  They were answers that were specific to our family and for us, again, that was huge, we didn't feel like we were, you know, one-size-fits-all program.  It was really specific to the families.  And sort of like what was mentioned yesterday, you know, just really starting with the patient or the family and then sort of developing everything around that and I can truly say that the EARS program and St. Mary's in children has done that.  And empowered our family to be able to make decisions for Kayleigh that might have been harder had we not had that support.  
	And then the weekly AVT lessons.  At first, my background is a special ed teacher so I felt like I had a little bit of an advantage going in knowing the school setting.  That was not the case.  
	You know, I knew nothing about working with a child with a language delay that severe.  
	So the weekly AVT lessons were probably the biggest component that allowed Kayleigh to mainstream.  I was able to become as close to an expert as I could be on how to service her at home, how to work with the School District to make sure that her needs were being met.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Tell then about when you were shopping and the person stopped you.
	>> Oh, yes, this has happened more than once.  People have stopped me and asked me if I was a speech therapist and I was out on a session.  They thought I had brought my child that I was servicing out into the community.  I mean I could not be more excited about that.  Because not only did it happen more than once but it just affirmed that you know those weekly sessions what were what we needed they weren't always easy.  Jessie and I have grown very close but there were times we had to have discussions and she would say, things are going really good.  Now we've got to push it a little bit further.  
	Had that trust not been built through all these family sessions, I would have had a much more difficult time saying, okay, let's persevere.  You know what, we're not going to let her plateau.  You know if that relationship hadn't been built, I probably could have said, she doesn't know what's going on at home.  We're struggling as it is.  We can't -- we're not ready to take it to the next level.  
	But that relationship had been built with our family so that she could do that and she would know the right time and Kayleigh has made progress in the past three years that I would have never thought possible.  And if we had let her plateau, that would not have been the case.  
	We were always encouraged to ask questions.  They would give us feedback.  
	So I would say those are probably the biggest components that have made mainstreaming that much easier.  We're coming up on our last annual review having the EARS team on board with us, I feel nervous about losing them but I'm ready.  I know that when I go to that next meeting and you know the EARS team is not with me, I'll have everything I need to make sure that Kayleigh's needs are met.  
	I don't know if there's another . . . 
	Oh, yes.  So preparing any child to have self-identity is always hard but then when there's the cultural piece that we don't have as a hearing family, I can't provide to her for other family members, that was the other piece that was so important about being at St. Mary's.  
	Aside from having the peers close in proximity, they interacted together a ton.  I mean, they went to specials together.  They went to lunch together.  They had evenings where the early childhood groups would come in and we would all work together.  
	And to Kayleigh, that was very important.  I mean, it was important to us.  But like I said before, we would never push anything on Kayleigh that didn't seem like that was a good fit for her.  If we are anywhere and there's an interpreter or anybody that has any amplification device, she is very quick to point it out.  She will sit as close to the interpreter as she can.  And I don't think that would have been the case had she not had that exposure that we were able to have at St. Mary's.  
	And I think having the Deaf Mentor Program, having those adults coming in and talking to the adults has given me the confidence to then go back to Kayleigh and really have discussions with her.  She's only seven so obviously you know they are not too deep at this point.  
	But really have discussions about how she's feeling as an individual.  And we don't always you know point out how are you feeling as being Deaf at seven, how does that feel?  That's not something that comes out in conversation.  
	But you know we have talked about fatigue and we have talked about how you might feel more tired because it's harder for you to listen.  That came -- I had heard that before but that came from the Deaf Mentor Program that really struck home to me and I said that's really something we should probably start talking to Kayleigh about now that she's in the mainstream setting more making sure we're aware of those things because that's not something that we experience as hearing adults.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  The other neat thing and I didn't prepare you I was going to talk about this so in the Deaf Mentor Program a lot of the hearing parents it's a safe place to ask questions so one of the questions for example was the fire alarm in the house.  How can we make sure my child has access to that and what can I do.  And there were a lot of different discussions about the local fire department can come in and install this.  But Jessica and -- her husband is really big into technology.  They took that idea of the visual to a whole new level they got Alexas for the girl's rooms and they are going to wire it to their house system to the Nest.  Right?  I'm really intrigued.
	>> If Brian was here he could give you all of that detail.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  The light will flash in the girls' room and both girls will have it, it won't just be for Kayleigh but something they do as a family but those kind of things to ask questions that you may not feel comfortable in asking if you didn't develop that rapport was something else that came out.
	>> Yes and the other thing that I was going to add that I feel was really important to us I can't remember when it was but recently the EARS staff had done an activity with all of the kids, I think it was a buck -- they asked them afterwards -- it was a book they asked them afterwards so who here is Deaf and there were other hearing adults in the room so they said who here is Deaf?  
	And the kiddoes -- Kayleigh did not raise her hand.  And that was huge to me that, you know, I really felt like I'm missing that, that's something that needs to be -- you know needs to be addressed and needs to be talked about.  
	So I think just, again, that being at school and having them focusing on that.  But also them relaying that information to us and saying, you know, hey here is something cool we did.  Here is how Kayleigh reacted.  Take that home and work on it as a family or address it as you see fit.  
	And it's been one of Kayleigh's favorite things now.  Now she'll say, ask me.  Ask me.  And we have a sibling that is hearing and it's been funny because Claire is always like but I sign can't I raise my hand like not yet not yet then we have to ask other questions so Claire can be involved.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  We had -- during our Deaf awareness activities at St. Mary's we always have that every fall and we were doing it as an activity we brought a book and we were talking about the superlatives that people have what makes them unique we went through first with the teachers because as every teacher you model first who has red hair you raise your hand or blue eyes raise your hand who here is Deaf none of the kids raised their hand which was a really unique finding from our side because at that point we had had the kids for over a year more of them.  But making sure that we have that comfort to talk about all of that type of jargon that they are going to hear and give them the vocabulary and define what it means.  
	And share it as a uniqueness.  It's something that makes you special.  
	So that was, yeah, we shared that with the parents during the Lunch and Learn.
	>> Yes again back to Lunch and Learn.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  We want to make sure we stop for questions and I feel like we go through this so quickly we only have 55 minutes and I can talk about each slide for so much longer but when we do talk about opening an oral program in a traditional manual school there are challenges.  And there are continuous challenges.  
	And I'm not going to say it's easy.  But I think we have surrounded ourself with a team this keeps it positive and makes sure that we continue to move in a forward direction.  We certainly have barriers.  And when I say communication I don't mean communication in sign versus oral I mean interpersonal communications between adults.  And just to define some of these that we have experienced and continue to work through, some of our challenges are certainly different personal philosophies.  And making sure that we establish respect for each person's philosophy and there's a place in the room for you to have your own philosophy.  We don't all have to agree.  And that's okay.  But we do have to be respectful.  
	Perceptions versus truths.  That's a big one.  We try to make sure that in their program literally our doors are open.  Our doors are open as adults when we're in the office by ourself and our doors are open for our kids, as well.  Because if you have a question we want to make sure that your question is deemed in a truth not in a perception of what you believe to be.  
	So we make sure that we try to develop that back and forth communication and that visibility and that accessibility as a program and then as individuals, as well.  
	Maintaining accessibility.  So Jessica talked about this, we use the oral approach within our classrooms and within our -- we have a family group area.  But in the rest of the school, the responsibility is that we all sign.  
	The kids may not sign to us.  But all of the kids are signing.  And they are interacting with their Deaf and Hard of Hearing peers in gym class, in lunch, in library.  They get that exposure and that opportunity.  And it's neat to see them as they get older start to code switch with -- very naturally with those that they have developed a relationship with themselves.  
	Communication between programs.  I kind of already stated that.  But making sure that from the leadership level down, we have mixed communication with our early education program.  It's not just the early education oral program.  We also have communication around.  
	Integrating new options into existing practices.  This is harder for our manual program.  Because the oral program is new, it's more accepting when we want to introduce something new or adjust something.  But when we then say you know the manual program says oh I really love that parent support component it's almost more difficult for them to integrate it because they have had this idea of well that's happened since forever.  We can't change that.  That's best practice.  So that's been an interesting finding, as well.  
	Enrollment is always a concern.  And when we talk about school viability, there's certainly a concern that if you have an oral program, you're preparing the students to leave.  So you're not continuing your viability when you're going to look at that K on because our program offers services through 21.  So that's something we do closely look at.  But we also have identified that we have relationships and positive experiences now out in all of those mainstream districts that our students have now gone to.  And those positive conversations, those positive experiences with the committee on special education Chairs as well as with our families, you would be surprised how often that gets back to the school.  There's more people where for the outreach even when the children are older or perhaps need more support when they do age.  
	Defining individuality of what it means to be Deaf.  That's something I think we continue to work on.  When we look at the Buffalo region, Rochester is really close so Rochester has a huge Deaf culture component.  And Buffalo's is much smaller so an area we have talked about is tapping into that Rochester piece for a Deaf Mentor and bringing in some of those professionals, as well, to give a little bit of a more -- a wider range of what it means to be Deaf.  Sign in Buffalo even within our Deaf Community is much more English based because the school was a total communications school for so long whereas the sign exposure in Rochester is much more the traditional ASL base.  
	There's individuality in that.  I'm making a general comment.  But how do we make sure we expose our kids to the sign that they are going to experience later if they go to Gallaudet or they go to NTID?  
	And then strength, support from school stakeholders certainly has been a wonderful strength.  Expansion of our family support both in our oral program as well as in our manual program.  That's been I think my largest strength.  
	And then spillover of expansion and services provided for larger school community.  Audiological.  As well as local and state-level collaborations.  So as a 4201 School, part of CESD requirements are your connection with your state program.  There's a whole indicator in that area.  
	And our work here has brought that in.  You can see the programs right here.  
	Has brought that in.  That we have direct communication.  We're aware of how many students in our region are diagnosed with hearing loss.  We're better able to support those families.  And that's been a huge increase for our school, as well.  
	I wanted to end with this video and then after this, we'll open for questions certainly and comments.  
	But this video when we first started, we had three little munchkins in our classroom.  One of them came from a culturally Deaf family.  They signed at home.  Another one came from a typical hearing family.  And then the third came from a family that the families had spoken Spanish at home.  And she was -- she received her cochlear implants and late identified they came actually from Puerto Rico so we had a very eclectic group certainly and at St. Mary's we have a music show every year that's been long standing.  
	And accessibility is a big component of that music show.  And each class gets up and performs for their family and friends and the larger school community.  And we wanted to make sure that the EARS program we highlighted accessibility for not only our Deaf Community, not only the oral families that were going to attend but also for the Spanish.  So I feel like this is just a really great vignette of how it's achievable to give accessibility even when you have more than one avenue to look at.  
	Or at least it should be achievable.  
	I'm going to play with this for one minute.  
[Music] 
	"You Are My Sunshine".
	>> You are my sunshine.  My only sunshine.  You make me happy, when skies are gray.  You'll never know, dear, how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away.  
[Music].
	>> You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.  You'll never know, dear, how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away.  
[Music].
	>> You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.  You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.  Please don't take my sunshine away.  
[Music].
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Let me get back to where that was.  
	How many of you are Mac users?  The PC is so much slower.  
	So really here I just want to thank you all for -- I'll wait for the slides.  We'll see if that can -- there we go.  
	Open.  Just open.  
(Chuckles).
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  At this point we're really just going to open for questions anyways.  Questions, comments?  Thank you so much for coming today.  Yes.  
	>> So this might be more of a (inaudible) question.  As a state school I'm sure you're familiar with state funding what does that look like with this program, is it reallocation of FTE of positions and money?  Was it grants to start approaching your (inaudible) legislative leader for money.  What was that process like for you guys.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Because in the beginning we weren't expanding, it was considered a program offering within the existing budget.  So internally there was a reallocation of funds for the program.  But there was not an increase from (inaudible) appropriation.  
	Does that answer your question?  
	>> Yeah, I would like to talk more later about what that looked like, were there program cuts to make this money available?  Or did you just have leftover money that really wasn't being used?  
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  We can talk more about it after this.  The program -- no program closed for this to be offered.  A lot of the support for example the (inaudible) some of the additional pieces that was grant funded.  We also have a foundation for the school.  So some money came from that but we can talk more after specifically about that.  
	>> I just have a couple of questions so I'll start with short ones No. 1 how many kids are in early childhood total including yours as well as your bimodal program.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Currently I'm trying to visualize the class list in my head.  From birth to 3 program, we currently have five.  That is more largely weighted currently in our manual program.  In our preschool program we have around 15.  
	>> Then the other question I had is you talked a lot about the interaction of the children (inaudible) bilingual program and then obviously you also have access to typical peers.  
	I'm just curious, No. 1, how do the children learn sign so that they can interact with their bilingual peers.  And then also is there an opportunity for language allocation for example families who may want children to spend some time in here and -- some time in EARS and some time in bilingual.
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Right now there's no implicit sign language instruction but we actually talked about that having some of our Deaf Mentors come in or ASL specialists have them be an additional piece they would expand.  They pick it up just watching their peers and watching the teachers interact.  
	The second question, language allocation.  Yes.  
	So when we first started, we have actually two parents that wanted split time and we adjust -- it's a family-based decision.  That is an opportunity.  We also in the beginning, it's something that the school -- they called it EARS enrichment.  So for some students they had some strong oral potential they had the opportunity and their family had the opportunity for an AVT type of coaching service.  
	It's not anything that's strictly done.  But we adjust based on the need and requests of the family.  
	>> (Off microphone).
	>> I'm sorry; louder.
	>> Part C refer directly to the School for the Deaf or (inaudible).
	>> JESSICA HOLST:  Right.  So that -- that is a huge area of concern.  So because Part C is a completely separate area of funding.  Part C legislatively was set up after the legislation for 4201 Schools.  They don't talk.  The (inaudible) don't talk.  
	Technically the students can double dip for services.  However, we sit on our local early intervention coordinating Council.  Currently Jessica and I are the Chairs of that there has to be one professional Chair and one parent Chair so our voice is heard.  We also developed the Hearing Loss Task Force where we looked at that as a development piece.  
	Even with all of that discussion in place, there are existing referrals that happen -- there's another oral program in our area.  And they are a Part C program and the existing flow is easier to refer to that program.  
	So we find that it's a lot of education that has to occur at the level of the Service Coordinator.  And may need -- they need to occur annually because there's a lot of turnover of Service Coordinators so it ends up being whoever the family talks to first when they come and do their initial IFSP review is where the family goes which they are not making an informed decision.  So on a regional level and also on a state level because we participated in the (inaudible) Learning Community, we're looking at how we can help to make that more consistent not just in Buffalo but across the state so families get a better understanding of what their regional offerings are and are allowed to tour and talk to the professionals before they start.  Because our 45-day rule they tend to rush them into a program so Service Coordinator, education, and join your LESCC.  
	Okay.  I can't take any more questions but I will stand towards the back if you have anything.  Okay.  Thank you so much.  
	(Applause) 

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This is being provided in a rough-draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.  
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