Thanks Marvin Miller and Julie Rems Smario for making excellent summary!
In response to some of the concerns brought up about the hunger strikers, I gave a summary which I’m sharing here now. With thanks to Julie Rems Smario for the edits. #wpsdoppression
Fact #1 – the board is composed of 80%+ hearing folks with little or no experience in Deaf education
Fact #2 – WPSD school mission and vision doesn’t reflect bilingual approach. It mentions ASL once with emphasis on “individual needs” — a standard practice by the audist system to divide and conquer our children by labeling each one of them individually, not collectively
Fact #3 – CEO Rhoten has written a letter saying all “staff” are required to have “minimum entry level ASL skills” which we all know is not acceptable at all.
Fact #4 – we have multiple video testimonies showing serious and real concerns of excessive SimCom usage in the school, and most importantly…
Fact #5 – there are 3 Deaf people risking their health and their lives by going on a hunger strike in order to stand up to this audist system.
We need to respect their stand and stand with them until three simple demands are met —
75% Deaf on board
Recognize ASL on equal basis with English
Superintendent to be Deaf-centric, which means have knowledge and the heart of working with the Deaf community, and developing Deaf teachers and administrators.
These demands are reasonable and appropriate. We’ve known for a long time that our Deaf community has been divided and we have been impacted by systematic audism and linguicism so it is difficult to achieve unity.
One way to address this is try and support the goals and ideals and principles the hunger strikers are standing up for.
#WPSDOppression #WPSDHungerStrike
I’m with Howard A. Rosenblum, CEO of NAD (National Association of the Deaf) regarding WPSD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl8eKeS2C9c
Fight for the right PSB Superintendent – 2015 #PSBsuperintendent2015 For the past 145 years, Deaf Education in Ontario has not had Deaf Superintendent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=26&v=MAIYQqqAWKs There is more vlogs and updates on Facebook. Many of Deaf Canada Communities has express support to start having Deaf Superintendent after many years of not having any Deaf Leaders. Time for change!
To wrap up with two events going on with Deaf Children’s education and sign language rights at WPSD and Deaf Superintendent now at Canada, here is the World Federation of the Deaf’s statement on this:
Thank you for all the positive comments! We have received many requests to have another video portraying deaf children with varying sign languages. If you have a video of deaf children signing ‘With Sign Language Rights, We Can!’ in your national sign languages, please send them to info@wfdeaf.org. to watch video go to: https://www.facebook.com/Wfdeaf.org/videos/870501089685426/?fref=nf
Meanwhile, continue to join us to give deaf children their linguistic rights at https://donate.wfdeaf.org/
#WithSignLanguageRightsOurChildrenCan!
Other articles: http://wfdeaf.org/human-rights and http://wfdeaf.org/our-work/focus-areas/deaf-education