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NC Association
of the Deaf
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Board Members
New Year's Resolutions
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CRAIG: I am committed to improving the quality of interpreting service within the NC Department of Public Instruction system, from K -12.
GOAL: It is my personal goal to see that all educational interpreters are required to be licensed with the NC Interpreters and Transliterators Licensing Board. Establishing a new minimum requirement for educational interpreters from 3.0 EIPA score to 4.0 will give the educational interpreters full recognition as licensed interpreters. In addition, this will build better collaboration between the community interpreters and the educational interpreters. Most importantly, increasing the minimum EIPA score from 3.0 to 4.0 and requiring licensure will be a tremendous positive impact on the quality of interpreting service that deaf students get.
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MEREDITH: I am committed to promoting ASL Literacy in young deaf and hard of hearing children despite how light one experiences hearing loss. Early exposure to signing leads to earlier reading and more extensive reading vocabulary. Unfortunately, many professionals and parents do not understand the ramifications of following the speech-exclusive approaches as D/HH children are intentionally denied exposure to sign language. This lack of awareness leads to linguistic deprivation for the deaf and hard of hearing children.
GOAL: My goal is to give ongoing awareness workshops to professionals working with families with deaf and hard of hearing children, so they’d recommend including sign language because sign language prevents language deprivation.
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MARTINA: I value community partnership. There are significant benefits of collaboration between organizations that serve the Deaf Community. We need to work together to achieve common goals.
GOAL: As an event planner, it is my goal to have an NCAD expo where officers and liaisons from 20+ Deaf organizations and service providers are invited to celebrate NC Deaf Business owners at the expo.
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JAIME: I am committed to the priorities of deaf child development, a focus on the healthy growth of all developmental domains through a linguistically rich environment such as sign language rather than auditory deprivation and speech skills. Our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being must be valued and nurtured by the whole.
GOAL: Eastern NC School for the Deaf in Wilson and NC School for the Deaf in Morganton do not have eligibility jurisdiction in NC; therefore, students must be brought into special education by one of the LEAs and then referred to E/NCSD. The current enrollment process shows that the initial IEP meetings cannot occur at E/NCSD. Families are required to have their first IEP meeting in their hometown, at a public school, which means their D/HH child must be mainstreamed first before transferring to E/NCSD. This transfer process can take many months, even years. There is a state law, House Bill 1030, that requires the IEP team to share information about E/NCSD as a placement option. However, IEP teams across the state do not have to document that they have shared this information with the parents. Where is the parent’s choice? This must change.
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THERESA: I love NCAD’s motto: Stand up. Speak out. Seek equality. I am committed to helping NCAD share information effectively via social media, the OurNCAD.org website, and monthly NCAD
e-newsletters. Relevant, helpful information enables Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and DeafBlind citizens and allies of the Deaf Community to contact NCAD with their concerns or questions. I hope they feel comfortable enough to talk with our amazing board members about anything. Why? Because that is what the NCAD is here for!
GOAL: My goal is to continue building the subscriber database as monthly e-newsletter stirs conversations with the readers. My involvement with the design of e-newsletters helps readers reflect on the shared content.
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DAYA: NC Association of the Deaf organization is deeply challenged as the Board constantly faces different dilemmas every day. Depending on the situation and available resources, the Board tries very hard to develop other solutions that could be applicable both in the short and long term. One of our most difficult challenges is fundraising, as many emergencies occur across the state. Our board members step in to serve every Deaf, Hard of Hearing, DeafBlind, and Late Deafened citizens and allies of the Deaf Community who contact us. Our work is 100% volunteer, and frankly, we do not have enough workforce, which is why I am committed to helping with fundraising.
GOAL: My focus is on fundraising, from looking for donors to finding sponsorships to promote the educational, socioeconomic, health, civil rights, and welfare of the citizens we serve.
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LINDA: I have always been deeply invested in accessibility in telecommunications, world, from television broadcasting to relay services. There are several kinds of relay services, such as text-to-speech relay services, video relay services, internet protocol relay services, captioned relay services, and others. Deaf, Hard of Hearing, DeafBlind, and Late Deafened people will feel more independent to attend movies with open captions at their preferred times instead of a specific time/day decided by the management.
GOAL: My goal is to work with movie theaters on providing open-captioning, starting with five big cities in NC.
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MIKE: My new year’s resolution is to collaborate with our community in establishing a multilingual education program for deaf and hard of hearing children in several of North Carolina's public schools and both schools for the deaf. Deaf and hard of hearing children should receive a top-notch education by providing everything they need to succeed socially and academically.
GOAL: I want to see early intervention professionals working with families of deaf children with an open mind in sharing the importance of early exposure to American Sign Language regardless of hearing technology and early hearing and speaking interventions used for spoken language development. All deaf children are at risk for language deprivation. A bilingual social and academic environment for deaf children greatly outweighs the benefits of a monolingual environment in reducing the risk of language deprivation. Therefore, instead of making bilingual education for deaf children a choice, have it readily available for them.
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E-News creatively designed by: Theresa Moss,
NCAD Social Media Coordinator
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Literary production of E-News by:
Jaime Marshall,
NCAD Secretary
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NC Association of the Deaf |
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