Junior National Association of the Deaf and CSD's leadership class came together for an inspiring weekend at California School for the Deaf. Teams got ideas and suggestions for their final presentations from Deaf community leaders David   Eberwein, Julie   Rems-Smario, and Raymond   Rodgers.

(Scroll down for the full story about CSD's Leadership Weekend.)

[ image description: Students gather round a conference table watching Deaf community leaders. High tech monitors are mounted on the wall behind them with a slideshow presentation in progress.]

[ image description: Photo below is a headshot of Clark Brooke. Clark is wearing a black shirt and an orange tie (school colors). He is looking at the camera smiling. The background is a professional-looking gray marble screen.]

Greetings from the land

of ORANGE and BLACK !

 

We kick off 2019 with this January edition of the CalNews !  CSD has experienced several magical months lately, and we are excited to share some of the highlights with you. To sum up the news in this edition: 'Leadership' and ' Relevance' were the themes for both December and January. 

Leadership development among our students continues to be a core value of the school, and is a part of our Teaching and  Learning values. It is very important that we prepare our students for any obstacles they may encounter. Students are encouraged to take the initiative to find resolutions to challenges they may face by developing collaborative relationships with individuals and organizations. This was the driving force behind the first annual Leadership Retreat between CSD and CSDR (Fremont and Riverside) students!

During the Battle of California weekend, CSD spearheaded our first Leadership Retreat with 57 student leaders from CSD and CSDR in attendance. The student leaders engaged in leadership activities, presentations, and discussions on how to better the community. We had several inspiring Deaf community leaders give presentations, and work alongside our students, including Dr. Frank Turk! It was an eye-opening experience for everyone involved. We look forward to next year's retreat at CSDR.

One of the main highlights this past January was implementing the National Day of Racial Healing on a large scale. In anticipation of the event, our Diversity Club representatives wrote a letter to the City of Fremont proposing that the City make this an official day of celebration on an annual basis. Upon receipt of the letter, Mayor Mei invited the Diversity Club representatives to the City of Commerce for a Proclamation Ceremony, as the City Council unanimously adopted the National Day of Racial Healing as part of the annual civic activities. 

To further reinforce the importance of leadership on both a national and international level, we had World Federation of the Deaf President Colin Allen with us for a student-centered presentation. He visited our campus to talk with students and staff about the purpose of the WFD. Language deprivation and language acquisition continue to be a challenge for every Deaf individual in the world, and it continues to be a central theme for the World Federation of the Deaf.

Through our Relevance efforts, we have been able to partner with Google. This partnership has given our students the opportunity to do an internship at Google's corporate office, in conjunction with our career preparation program. In addition , some of our students are working at Marriott and Hyatt hotels as part of their work experience . This is just a sampling of the many work experiences that our students are having this year!

California School for the Deaf hosted an important assessment-relevant meeting with Educational Testing Service (ETS) to discuss 'assessment access' . There are assessments that are being developed by ETS that the state uses to assess students attending California public schools. Those tests are also applicable and important for our Deaf population; however, the appropriateness of the assessments and their accessibility continue to be a topic of discussion. It is very important to us that ETS, and any assessment publishers, be aware of best practices when it comes to testing Deaf students . This dialogue is going to be an ongoing discussion.

The CSD Alumni Association (CSDAA) hosted an alumni forum for approximately 50   attendees. As the school leader, I was pleased to see active alumni members at the meeting offering their ideas and their time in support of the alumni organization. If you are a CSD alum and have a vested interest in the school, I strongly encourage you to get involved in CSDAA activities in the near future. CSD relies heavily on all four of our school organizations for community events, including the CSDAA; Community Advisory Council; Association of Families, Teachers, and Counselors; and the Foothills Athletic Association. We want our school organizations to be an integral part of our school community, as we continue to carry our legacy into the years ahead.

California School for the Deaf publishes 10 editions of the CalNews throughout the year. We send out monthly editions of the newsletter, except for December/January and July/August when we only send a single edition for the two months. By sharing this monthly  CalNews  with you, it is evident that there are so many things going on at CSD! Our students, families, staff, and community members are to be recognized for their commitment towards the school’s mission , serving our students to the best of their ability. Together, we continue to create more opportunities for everyone at CSD.

With Eagle Pride,

Clark Brooke, Ed.S.

Superintendent

California School for the Deaf, Fremont

39350 Gallaudet Drive

Fremont, CA 94538

510-344-6010 Videophone

510-823-6071 Spanish Callers

Leadership – It is what we do to accomplish our goals, by working together on issues that matter to our Deaf community. We can’t solve every problem on our own, but we can make progress by working collaboratively together.

During the Leadership Weekend, students from California Schools for the Deaf (Riverside and Fremont) absorbed information from three wonderful presenters: David Eberwein, Julie Rems-Smario and Raymond Rodgers. The students split into five groups. They followed the Design Thinking – Ideation process to come up with a plan. Their collaboration was a beautiful thing to witness!

California Schools for the Deaf leadership students collaborated to produce five action plans that they shared with the Parodi Charitable Trust Board. The sponsors from the Junior National Association of the Deaf will do their best to see that these action plans will be implemented, some of the action plans may start being implemented as early as Spring  2019. It was evident that we must continue to offer a leadership class here at CSD! Students in the leadership class will continue to hone their skills to support and contribute to the action plans they developed at the retreat.

Leadership students developed the following action plans which we hope will take place between January and December of 2019:

Parodi Trustees judge the final presentations, as each team of students pitches their action plan. Trustees provided comments, suggestions, feedback and praise for all five of the presentations .

[ image description: Photo 1 - Dr. Frank Turk signs 'success'. A slideshow presentation is displayed on a big screen to his right, announcing the presenters who are giving Welcome Remarks (Clark Brooke and Frank Turk). Students' heads are visible in the audience; Photo 2 - David Eberwein and Daniel Girard are standing on the Klopping Theater stage signing. There is a slide with several nationalities' 'hands of color' holding up a globe. The students' hands are waving applause; Photo 3 - Parodi board members are sitting in a semi-circle with desks in front of them. Name placards are placed on the desk in front of each board member; Photo 4 - The student leadership team proposing Prioritizing Deaf Education for Deaf Children is standing in front of their slide presentation. There are three students on the left side of the monitor and five students on the right side of the monitor; Photo 5 - Group photo of the leadership students posing behind the Donald N. Parodi Charitable Trust sign. Frank Turk is standing in the middle of the group. Some CSD staff and presenters are also standing toward the back row of the group; Photo 6 - ( clickable video graphic ) An image of Frank Turk presenting to the students is visible on the video graphic, but clicking on the video will show lots of happenings during the leadership retreat; Photo 7 - A bulletin board showing all of the 2018-2019 leadership students, and their official role in the various high school clubs and organizations.]

Lunch time activites during Leadership weekend:

National Day of Racial Healing focuses on healing our ancestors' wounds, tying the past to the present, by collectively honoring and valuing marginalized communities' existence.

California School for the Deaf celebrated our first National Day of Racial Healing. It was a profound and beautiful day for us all. We will continue to raise awareness about race, racism, and systematic oppression by becoming critically conscious and authentic. 

George Quirie & Samuel Brown, Ebony Club members, accompanied Liann Osborne to the Fremont City Council where Mayor Lily Mei presented them with a proclamation acknowledging that January   22,   2019 is the National Day of Racial Healing. 

[ image description: Top Photo - ( clickable video graphic ) A girl is holding up a sign that says #How We Heal...water! Racial Healing; Photo above left - Liann Osborne is sitting with Ebony Club members George Quirie and Samuel Brown as they read the proclamation they received; Photo above right - Liann, George, and Samuel pose with Mayor Lily Mei. The four of them are standing together. George Quirie and Mayor Mei are standing in the middle holding up the proclamation.]

Alexis Bravo

signs the National Anthem

2019 National Hockey League All-Star Game, at SAP Center, in San Jose

Samantha Medina-Vazquez

signs the National Anthem

College Football Playoff National Championship 2019, at Levi's® Stadium

[ image description : ( clickable video graphic left ) - Alexis Bravo is standing on a red carpet signing. It is a dazzling image that is mirrored with smaller versions of the image on either side of the main image; ( clickable video graphic right ) Samantha Medina-Vazquez is signing in a big stadium with a huge crowd behind her.]

Greetings!

As part of the self-study (accreditation) process at California School for the Deaf, Fremont, we are inviting input from you as a valuable member of the school community. Your feedback will assist the school with the development of goals for future improvement.

 

It is very important that you take every question into consideration and respond to the best of your ability. Thank you for being a part of the school improvement process. 

Please click to take survey

With Eagle Pride,



Accreditation Leadership Team

Click for printable, readable version

[ image description: Photos in top row - Set of photo slides describing sibling relationships in families with Deaf children. Click on any of the slides for the complete readable version; Photos in second row - Flyer announcing early childhood education family workshop series. Click on flyer for readable version.]

I Broke My Trunk

Hotel Bruce

[image description: ( clickable video 1 | clickable video 2 ) Story-signers Pat Bernstein and Katherine Greene are seated. Both are smiling. They are displaying the storybook covers of the stories they will sign in each video.]

See original post on Instagram @csdeagles

Colin Allen, President of World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), visited with CSD high school students. He presented about his role, what WFD is all about, and why it is so important to preserve and recognize Sign Language as a birth right. The Deaf Counseling, Advocacy & Referral Agency (DCARA) and California School for the Deaf partnered together to by bring Colin Allen to CSD. Thank you DCARA!



Video edit: Colin Allen;

Photo credit: JAC Cook & DCARA

[ image description: ( Clickable video graphic ) - World Federation of the Deaf president is signing with a massive slideshow behind him. The slide on the screen says "The Legal Recognition of Sign Language by Country". There is a list of countries below this heading.]

Our former CSD-Culinary Arts Team went to Google for an interview at Bon Appétit. The students dressed their best. They practiced all of their interview questions and answers. They even remembered to bring their career portfolios to show their experience, along with their resumes and Food Handling & Safety certificates. It thrills us to share the exciting news that the entire team got accepted! Their internship will begin on May 20.

[ image description: Six smartly dress individuals stand in between brightly colored Google bikes. Each person is spelling a letter of 'G-O-O-G-L-E'.]

California School for the Deaf received the 2019 Partnership Award from the Deaf Counseling Advocacy and Referral Agency. 

DCARA Executive Director Raymond Rodgers expressed that his organization recognizes that the partnership between DCARA and CSD continues to be strong. CSD Superintendent Clark Brooke was honored to receive the award behalf of the CSD Community.

See more photos & video of the event

on Instagram @csdeagles

Liliana Ortiz received the Shining Star award. She was recognized for her leadership, and her contribution to CSD and beyond. It is obvious to us that she is going somewhere. Kudos to Liliana!

The Change Agent award was presented to Lorraine Flores for her work in bringing communities together and for elevating individuals who are not that privileged by giving them access to opportunities. Well deserved!

[ image description: Photo Left - DCARA logo and text: "DCARA, Partnership Award, California School for the Deaf, Deaf Community Award, January 12, 2019"; Photo Right - Group photo in front of DCARA wallpaper: Tom Corcoran, Ethan Bernstein, Liliana Ortiz, Clark Brooke, Lorraine Flores, JAC Cook, and Charles Farr.]

Ashley and Kaliska work with AutoCAD, finalizing measurements before submitting their project.

CSD students earn dual college credits

We are excited to share that our first semester kicked off with the Career Technical Education department offering three dual-credit courses, in partnership with Rochester Institution of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The courses were taught by high school teachers during regular school hours.

Those students who passed Raster and Vector Graphics , Page Layout I , Engineering Graphics and Blueprint Reading will receive an official RIT transcript showing their final grade for the course and the college credit they earned.

For further information, please contact: Charles Farr, Career Technical Education Principal

—Submitted b y Jason Kulchinsky, Information Technology Teacher .

See original post on Instagram @csdeagles

[ image description: Top photos - Three photos of students working with their iPads. Only the back of each student's head and a sliver of their face is visible in each of the photos. The sketches that the students are making on the iPads are detailed and complex; Bottom photos - (left) Two guys sitting. Both have beards. One guy is wearing a blue shirt the other guy is wearing a black shirt; (center & right) One guy sitting with beard and black shirt.]

For years, California School for the Deaf has been advocating to ensure that our Deaf children in California and beyond have access to valid and reliable assessments. In some situations, such as state-mandated tests, it may be the provision of accommodations such as American Sign Language translation or closed captioning. In other situations, we have developed our own assessment tool such as our battery of American Sign Language assessments. The goal is always to make sure that the assessments can provide data to support instruction in the classroom.

Recently, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) reached out to California School for the Deaf because they h ave a contract with the state of California to administer several assessments, including the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC). We were concerned that the speaking and listening domains of th e ELPAC weren’t accessible or valid for Deaf children. The Educational Testing Service wanted to better understand our concerns and see how our concerns may be addressed.

Educational Testing Service representatives came to the California School for the Deaf and met with the CORE team and some of CSD’s academic principals. We provided them with information on language deprivation; the impact on children when they don’t share the home language of their families; and the way that there is systematic oppression of Deaf children in forcing them to take tests on skills such as speaking/listening that are not reliable measures of their abilities. We also shared the national American Sign Language standards and American Sign Language assessment prototypes, and we pointed out that current Deaf researchers are expanding scientific fields.

By the end of the meeting, the Educational Testing Service participants stated that the issues are more complex than they had originally imagined, and that they were interested in continuing the conversation both within their team and with the California School for the Deaf. CSD will follow up through regular meetings with the Educational Testing Service; and the ETS plans to return for a tour so that they can see Deaf bilingual pedagogy in action!

For more information about our position on the access to valid and reliable assessments, please contact: CORE Supervisor David "Dave" Eberwein.

[ image description: Top Photo - David Eberwein leads a discussion in the Cottage 18 CORE meeting area. There is a slideshow presentation to his right, but the information on the slideshow is not clearly in focus on the photo. There are several rounded tables put together to make one large, circular conference table. CSD staff and the Educational Testing Service team are seated around the table watching David Eberwein; Second Photo - A larger photo of the same setting except this time Barbara White is standing behind the meeting attendees who are seated around the table. Barbara is signing her point; Third Photo - Group photo of staff from CSD and ETS, outside of Cottage   18, in front of the big circular Outreach logo.]

Elementary residential students' merit field trip to Bounce-A-Rama

Elementary has 27 residential students (and growing!). Each student earns merits for demonstrating positive behavior in the cottage. Every two weeks, the students vote on a location to reward themselves to a fun-filled activity. The students happily celebrated by exhausting themselves at Bounce-A-Rama, where bouncers can race through challenging obstacle courses, explore hidden paths, and conquer two story slides. The kids had a blast and wish to go back again next year!

Our Valentine’s Day Party is just around the corner! 

Each month, we celebrate with a themed party. But how do we make the party look beautiful? We have an evening where we do arts and crafts to make the decorations. 

Four booths were set up to make various items for our party. We invited high school residential students to help with ideas. This provided a way for the high school students to earn their community volunteer hours. The elementary students enjoyed the presence of the high school students and they developed bonding time. Memories were shared with each other, as residential students here at California School for the Deaf.

[ image description: Photo 1 - Students pose in front of the San Francisco, Mason and Powell Street cable car inflatable; Photo 2 - Three card tables lined up with kids making colorful purple, pink and teal paper decorations.]

Elementary is excited to have a new playground structure for students to use. Students have been enjoying the exploring the structure while spending time with their friends! The design is new and inventive, and encourages both independent and cooperative play. Students have been reviewing playground expectations during their class time to ensure that everyone stays safe and has fun. See more photos on Instagram @csdeagles

[ image description: Photo Left - One boy is pointing to another boy who is looking through binoculars. Both boys are standing on top of a playground sculpture; Photo Center- Girl sitting in a spinning chair with a big smile on her face; Photo Right - Boy smiling as he peers through the rope climbing structure in the Elementary playground.]

CSD Alumni (29) vs Varsity Girls (54)

It was fun watching our ladies game! There were several family members playing against each other: sisters (Milana/Talia) and (Farrah/Chloe); along with mother and daughters (Vi and Jada/Jade).

[image description: Photo Above - Three rows of alternating players from the alumni and girls teams. First row lying on floor, second row sitting, third row standing. The two girls who are lying on their bellies, front and center, are signing "Heart Eagles"; Photo Left - Sisters Talia & Milana Boren arm-in-arm.]

Alumni (57) vs Varsity Boys (55)

What a close game! Family members playing against each other were: father/son (Kevin Bella/Luke) & brothers (Esau/Enos). It was fun to watch!

[ image description: Photo Above - Two rows of alternating players from the alumni and boys teams. Front row sitting on the floor, back row standing. The Eagle mascot is painted on the gym floor in front of the teams; Photo Left - Father and son, Luke and Kevin Bella, arm-in-arm.]

The tentative date for our CSDAA Reunion is June 2020. Jeff Buckmaster and Bonnie Jo Morrison will be the co-chairpersons for the CSDAA Reunion.  Melissa Arellano will be our secretary. Tom Murillo will do the newsletter. More information will be shared soon.

California School for the Deaf Alumni Association (CSDAA)

Students performing our Eagle Fight Song and cheering for the fans.

What a great turnout it was! Thanks to Clark Brooke and his cabinet for their encouraging words.

[ image description: Photo 1 - CSD alumni pose around a sign with the text: "CSD Alumni Association, San Francisco, Berkeley, Fremont", on the stage of the Klopping Theater; Photo 2 - Two students perform the Eagle Fight Song with their drummer in the gym; Photo 3 - Cheerleaders are cheering for the fans who are seated in the bleachers. The cheerleaders are spaced equal distances in one long straight line; Photo 4 - Group photo of everybody signing "Eagles".]

Eagle Community,

We are excited to announce 13 inductees who entered our CSD Athletics Hall of Fame. [See inductees listed - right.]

Dr. Winfield Runde – 1901, Contributor

Larry Apolinar – 1966, Football

Harold Foster – 1967, Track

Wilyman Cano – 1968, Football

Jake Arcanin – 1972-1999, Administrator

Gil Lentz – 1983-2005, Contributor

Asa Lodge – 1982, Track

Julie Green – 1983, Track

Melissa Green – 1984, Track

Lance Fabela – 1985, Basketball, Football

Barbara Hemstreet – 1986, Cheerleading

Kevin Wallace – 1990, Football

Alicia Flores – 1990, Volleyball, Softball

Please join us in congratulating these fantastic individuals!

[ image description: ( clickable video graphic ) - Athletic Director Warren Keller is sitting in his office, surrounded by orange and black sports memorabilia.]

Click on flyers below for printable version

Family Fun Weekend

CSD will host it’s 7 ^th annual Family Fun Weekend on March 22-24, 2019! 



This is a wonderful opportunity for families with Deaf children to engage with other families and Deaf professionals. While the adults attend fun and informative workshops, their children, ages 4 and up, attend Kids Camp with other Deaf children and their siblings. Childcare is provided for children under 4. The weekend is a wonderful experience for everyone! Siblings realize there are other siblings like them, and Deaf children make new friends while interacting with Deaf role models. 

Families who attend the Family Fun Weekend say the highlights are:

"My child made new friends with other Deaf kids in a signing environment."

"I was able to attend workshops while not worrying about my kids since they were having so much fun."

"I learned ASL with lots of hands-on activities."

"We learned about the many opportunities for our Deaf children."

"I was inspired by the Deaf leaders."

"My kids want to come EVERY year!"

Learn more | Register

Summer Kids Camps 2019

Meta Metal , Editor

Clark Brooke , School Superintendent