Deaf Anthology # 556: "Rubber Rooms"

A Deaf teacher in an oral program at a Roosevelt Island public school across downtown Manhattan was suspended with pay, pending investigation to an allegation from a parent accusing him of teaching sign language. Due to the privacy act enacted by the Board of Education, we were unable to obtain more details on the incident. The National Education Association (NEA) defends the Deaf teacher, stating that he is being assigned to a "rubber room," with no duties, while still collecting his sizable salary. The Deaf teacher, wishing not to be identified, pointed out that Deaf children uses ASL on the playgrounds, oral deaf learns ASL from their classmates who have Deaf parents, it is no different from Hispanic deaf youths learning Spanish in their household. Some Deaf parents tends to let their Deaf children to go to a local school so they can be together as a family while they are young, before transferring them to Fanwood or MSSD. ASL itself is forbidden in the classrooms, but there is no rules against its usage on the playground during recess or lunch period. Legal experts familiar with the case expects the administrative judge will rules in the Deaf teacher's favor because his oral interpreter can testify to that fact that the deaf children in the classroom reads the lips of the interpreter who translate for the Deaf teacher using ASL on the job. There was a shortage of qualified teachers when he was hired, and hiring an oral interpreter to meet the reasonable accommodation requirement of ADA, allow him to teach in this unusual environment unseen elsewhere. If the school can hire an ASL interpreter to translate for its Deaf students, and vice-versa, the same treatment should be applied here, hiring an oral interpreter to translate for a Deaf teacher. Does that make sense, there is absolutely no reason why a Deaf teacher can't teach to hearing pupils in this day and age, ADA is there for a purpose so why limited ourselves when there are opportunities out there.
Update: The Deaf teacher was reinstated because he has tenure protection, the foster parents who made the allegations attempted to remove the deaf child from class to transfer her out of state to Clarke, but the incarnated, biological father refuses to grant such permission as he is learning ASL while serving time behind bars.The social workers will petitioned the state to revoke the foster care license because of their attempt to obtain an unauthorized cochlear-implant procedure, violating the state welfare policy. The deaf child will soon live in peace after learning that her father will be released next week on parole. He promised to take care of his daughter, and thankful to the Deaf teacher for putting up with all these nonsense, and will be filing a lawsuit against the obnoxious foster parents. The deaf child loves taking the aerial tram over the East River going to school with her neighborhood friends, "the Big Apple is a great learning environment."

This is Smokey, stay tuned for the next episode of Deaf Anthology. Good night, Deaf America!