LSD Student Protest
 
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LIZ CONDO/The Advocate
A student is taken into protective custody by police after she sat in the school’s driveway to try to block buses taking students home from the Louisiana School for the Deaf on Wednesday afternoon, police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly said. The student was released to her parents later and no charges were filed.
 
By SONIA SMITH AND CHARLES LUSSIER
Advocate staff writers
Published: Oct 9, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.
 
Clutching hand-lettered cardboard signs, more than 50 students of the Louisiana School of the Deaf gathered at the school’s security gate Wednesday to block buses from leaving in protest of the temporary closure of the school.
 
“You’re making us miss out on our education,” said 19-year-old senior Brittney Lynch. “They’re forcing us to go home. That’s not fair. This is like our home.”
 
Lynch, who said she has flourished at the school since enrolling three years ago from a mainstream school in Deridder, was one of five students who signed a passionate letter in support of the school.
 
The students wrote that even a temporary suspension of classes would cause harm.
 
“We feel that you are punishing us by suspending our school and making us go home and putting us in a place where we will face bigger problems,” the letter says.
 
State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek announced Tuesday that the school would close temporarily at the close of classes Wednesday. Pastorek said he wants to give administrators time to implement changes to ensure the school is a safe place for children after a string of incidents of inappropriate behavior was reported at the school.
 
Pastorek made the announcement 11 days after a 16-year-old boy at the school allegedly sexually molested a 6-year-old girl on a bus hired by the school to take students home for the weekend.
 
The Advocate has reported that five people — three of them current or former school employees — were arrested between November 2007 and April for alleged sexual misconduct with juvenile students. Three of those people have pleaded guilty to lesser felonies this fall.
 
Dr. Alan Cohen, a psychiatrist and the author of a report released Tuesday that recommended the school overhaul its mission and implement new safeguards, will be on hand to help with changes next week, Pastorek said.
 
Ryan Commerson, a leader of the 2006 protests at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., against the selection of a president who is not fluent in American Sign Language, was on hand to help with Wednesday’s protest.
 
Local law enforcement authorities helped to maintain order.
 
Commerson, a graduate of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., said the school’s problems are in part caused by hiring staff not fluent in ASL.
 
“A hiring policy that brings in staff who don’t sign — this is creating an unsafe environment due to the lack of communication,” he wrote.
 
Donna Smith, who works at the school and has a 18-year-old son who has attended it for 12 years, said she first heard about the closure on the news Tuesday night.
 
“The way I heard it, it was like I was just told a Category 5 hurricane was hitting and it was one block away,” Smith said.
 
Smith said the teachers at the school are dedicated to the students and that she has never witnessed any abuse there.
 
“I’m here every day,” she said. “I would not tolerate any form of abuse. I would confront it.”
 
Ana Shelton, 17, an 11th-grader at the school, said she felt like she belonged somewhere for the first time when she came to the school two years ago.
 
“I felt great when I came here, like the teachers knew me and understood me,” Shelton said. 
 
More than 20 police vehicles sat parked on the school’s grassy lawn on Brightside Drive on Wednesday afternoon as officers from the Baton Rouge Police Department and other agencies worked to ensure the protest was peaceful, police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly said.
 
The officers spoke through sign-language interpreters with students, who were holding signs bearing the slogans “Save our School,” “We Love LSD,” and “We Want to Stay.”
 
Students were permitted to protest in one lane while buses were allowed to enter and exit the school campus in another, Kelly said. Police took one student into custody briefly before releasing her to her parents.
 
“There have been a lot of issues out here,” Kelly said of reported sexual incidents at the school over the years.
 
The Louisiana School for the Deaf offers broad services for hearing-impaired children, as well as “sign-rich” environment that will be hard to find in other schools in Louisiana.
 
Students have more options in larger public school districts.
 
For instance, East Baton Rouge Parish offers at least some hearing-impaired help at every school, though it offers the most services at three schools: LaSalle Elementary, Capitol Middle and Lee High.
 
Marsha Domingue, program specialist for hearing impaired services for the parish, said she’s not aware of any children transferring back to Baton Rouge as a result of the temporary closure. About 35 of the 215 children who go to the deaf school live in Baton Rouge, she said.
 
“We are ready to take those children if they come, and provide that service,” Domingue said. “We don’t want those kids to skip a beat.”
 
Stan Dixon, director of exceptional services for the parish school system, said, however, that children with multiple disabilities will have a more limited level of hearing-impaired help than they would at a place like the School for the Deaf.
 
“We have interpreters. We have caption boards. We have someone who signs for the kids in classes and so forth,” Dixon said. “The problem is if you have kids with multiple disabilities.”
 
Cindy Arceneaux, with Families Helping Families of Louisiana, said she has already received several calls from parents at Louisiana School for the Deaf who want to know their rights.
 
Arceneaux applauded state officials for taking decisive action, but said that the longer the school is closed, the more legal issues arise. Each student is protected by federal special education law and has an individualized education plan or IEP, the state still needs to comply with, she said.
 
“They can, yes, close down the school, but they need a plan for where these children are going to get an education,” Arceneaux said.
For instance, the child’s IEP may call for things that are only available now at the state school and it’s unclear whether local school districts can offer comparable service, she said.
 
Any students the state directs to local public schools can refuse to sign their new IEP and force administrative proceedings to find a compromise, Arceneaux said.
 
“They’re going to have to recreate the school, at least for some of the kids,” she said.