NCSD's friends fight to save school

Friends of the North Carolina School for the Deaf, including some of its retired faculty and staff, have gone on the road to fight for the school's future.
Their immediate goal is to reverse budget cuts that mean fewer staff hours and less classroom time for NCSD's students.
Their pressing fear is that the General Assembly, when it reconvenes on May 12, will consider closing the school.
"That will definitely be on the agenda," predicted Ann Aldridge of Morganton, one of NCSD's former principals.
When North Carolina's state government plunged into a recession-drained budgetary crisis in 2009, the legislature considered proposals from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. Its Office of Education Services oversees NCSD along with the Eastern N.C. School for the Deaf in Wilson and Governor Moorehead School for the Blind in Raleigh. The ideas were to merge the two schools for the deaf, probably in Wilson, or to consolidate all three schools.
Supporters of each school beat back the challenge, aided by state officials' indecision about precisely which services should be merged where. The N.C. Senate finally ordered DHHS "to develop and recommend plans to achieve efficiencies of scale and ensure the appropriate education of students with visual and hearing impairments."
The report is due next month.
Meanwhile, DHHS ordered budget cuts. Here in Morganton, students and staff can no longer return to the school Sunday night. Instead, the staff starts work Monday mornings and classes begin at 10 a.m.
The change outrages Aldridge and her fellow champions for NCSD. Since January they have been crisscrossing the state to lobby legislators, education officials and community leaders. Everywhere they go on Monday mornings, they said they see NCSD carrying children to the school in Morganton. Sometimes it's mid-morning and still miles from where the students supposedly already are in classes.
Barbara Palmento said, "Our primary concern is for the kids. If you asked staff members they'd tell you, you don't reduce class time."
Other cuts in staff hours reduce students' time for extracurricular activities including sports.
And, of course, staff members earn less money. Aldridge said the State Employees Association of North Carolina is investigating and may take action on the employees' behalf.
It outrages Garrett Walker, Palmento and others that not one person in the Office of Education Services is deaf.
"People not knowing what they should know are making decisions," Walker said.
No one in OES even has a degree if deaf education, according to Palmento.
"I don't believe they know what they're doing," said Aldridge.
One thing DHHS is doing now is collecting information. On the Office of Education Services' website is 65-page report filled with facts about the three schools' present situation, plus details of four possible future options:
n Have one consolidated residential school serving both the deaf and the blind, plus daytime-only programs at the other two schools.
n Consolidate services in one school and close the other two.
n Leave all three schools open and enhance their services.
n Have two residential schools, each serving both the deaf and the blind, and close the third school.
The Office of Education Services will accept public comments on the options until Friday. The draft report already is dated May 1.
Aldridge and her colleagues said they need people to speak up and reinforce the message to keep the three schools open.
"Instead of shutting something down, we want to move forward," said Sandy Turner.
One idea under development by the NCSD Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises money for the school and students, is to build a 54-unit condominium complex in Morganton for deaf adults. Aldridge said it's a logical connection and extension for the school and generations of deaf students who have been embraced by Morganton and Burke County.
To join the effort to save NCSD and help it grow, Aldridge said, "There is a Facebook site for the NCSD Parent Staff Organization entitled, 'Parents and Staff Supporting Deaf Children.' The discussions tab has a list of the senators and House members with whom we have met, the Deaf Child's Bill of Rights we hope to see passed, the reorganization plan we are proposing, three things which we are requesting and a sample letter for folks to use if they wish when they contact their legislators."
Turner said people who want to contact the lobbying group can send e-mail to info@ncsdfoundation.org.
There's also information on the NCSD Foundation's website, www.ncsdfoundation.org.