The Deaf Edge

Please read the final chapter before reading this.

I went to Gallaudet and RIT, but due to various reasons, mainly because of physical health reasons, I had to drop out. I studied psychology extensively, searching for answers that would bring me true closure. While I gained a deeper and clearer insight in the psyche, I was never able to get complete answers to why Ms. Marr and the other staff behaved the way they did.

I also read a ton of self-help books, searching for answers about myself. I was told constantly that most interpreters didn’t want to work with me, because I was horrible to them, and all kinds of crap. I didn’t have a good self-concept, but I knew that I wasn’t a horrible person. So I read nearly any psychology books I could get my hands on. And I wrote. Writing was the balm for my wounds.

When I began my second year at a community college after Gallaudet and RIT, I had a meeting with my advisor. As she searched through a desk for paper, she suddenly stopped and looked up at me. Through the interpreter, she said to me, “You know JJ, you’re not like the other deaf students here at CC. I have had not one complaint about you from the interpreters.”

My interpreter, who was also my friend, interjected (with my permission), “Yeah! I was just telling JJ that! I was telling her that all of the interpreters practically fight to interpret for her!”

I smiled then after a pause, I said, “Tell that to Northview for me, will you?”

Anne, my advisor fell silent for a moment then said, “Yeah. I heard about your situation with Northview. I never understood that.”

The interpreter said, “Well I dunno. Maybe it was because you, JJ were a smart aleck. I mean, in Ethics class she’s always jumping in and tearing apart other students’ arguments. It’s sooooo fun to interpret for! Voicing for her a mile per minute! So maybe the high school staff felt they had to ‘calm down’ you?”

I shook my head with a smirk. My interpreter knew bits and pieces of the story, but she really did not have any clue of what happened. Still smirking, I looked up and said, “That’s right. I’m horrible! I’m a smart ass! After all, I’m the Deaf Community Hitman! Yeaaaaaah!”

They burst out in body-convulsing laughter. With a smile, I retrieved the paper and walked away with the interpreter in tow.

Several feet away, the interpreter paused, then looked over her shoulder. She looked at me with a slight smile, “I can still hear Anne laughing.”

I smiled back at her and thought to myself, “Good… Leave them smiling at the very least.” As I looked away, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t had the nightmares about math since I began at the community college. My smile grew wider then I said, “Come on. We’re gonna be late for class.”

I graduated from the community college with a general A.A. degree and now am attending an university to complete my Bachelor of Science in Public and Nonprofit Administration. The nightmares never returned.

Deb Mills, to the best of my knowledge, remains teaching preschool at Northview. I saw her a few times over the years, and she never was able to look directly at me.

Sherri Ermatinger remains at Northview, interpreting. She now holds a QA rating. Mom ran into her once and Sherri told her, “I just wanted to say that you were right. I was not qualified to interpret for your daughter back then. But now I realize that I was not. Anita had told us that you hated all of us interpreters and all kinds of things, and I believed her. I’m sorry about what happened.”

Joan Esch left Northview several years later after my graduation to raise her children. She, like Deb, was never able to look at me in the face.

Ms. Kalsbeek still teaches at Northview, and I see her once in a while – always a pleasant encounter.

Ms. Marr went back to Maine to be with her family and is still interpreting to this day. Through a mutual friend, she asked for permission to email me. I declined and haven’t heard from her again.

Duane Kiley packed up his office on the last day of the school year and left. He told Mom when she wrote that last letter of complaint, that she was right and that he could not sleep at night. I hope he can sleep at night now.

Anita Siciliano retired from Northview several years ago, and has never been seen in the Deaf Community since.

John LaSotta, the superintendent who lost his job over the hearing and appeal, committed suicide during my senior year in high school. There was a suicide note, but it was never disclosed to the public.

Doreen Mangrum was demoted and works in another school district. Like the other two, she was never able to look directly at me. Years later, Mom would receive an envelope from her. She and Mom had an argument once about Mom giving her my social security number, and Mom refused.

In that envelope from Doreen, was a cut out newspaper article about a scandal that hit the public schools somewhere in Michigan. A school employee was caught stealing other employee and students’ social security numbers. Along with that cut out article was a post-it note, which simply read: You were right. – Doreen

Northview now has a deaf supervisor running the Total Communications program. The majority of teachers now sign far better, and all of the interpreters, to the best of my knowledge, have a QA rating.

As for Mom, she’s still fighting the Deaf Wars.

After the settlement, Kary hired Mom to work for him. He told her that she had wrote the best complaints he ever saw in his legal career. When she doesn’t work for Kary, she still advocates on behalf of deaf and hard of hearing children, and refuses payment from the parents.

Mom’s now a member of the Division of Deafness and Hard of Hearing Advisory Council, and has successfully advocated for over a hundred deaf/hoh children, including transferring over forty students to Michigan School of the Deaf.

She also won the Advocate of the Year award in Dearborn a few years ago, and she wrote a paper for Gallaudet about IDEA, which can be found on the American Society for Deaf Children’s website.

She was also instrumental in the formulation of the interpreter bill which I blogged about a while ago, and she is part of the core referent group to revise and reform the special education rules regarding deaf and hard of hearing children.

As the years go by, Mom’s caseload grows lighter and lighter, but I don’t anticipate her stopping her advocacy completely anytime soon. When she’s not advocating, she keeps busy by teaching American Sign Language at the local colleges, and being just a mom to me and my siblings because after all, like she said to me once during an argument, “I don’t care if you’re an adult now. You’re still my baby, and I will always be your mother!“

The End

This is a blog serial – so please read the preceding chapter if you haven’t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post.

The settlement agreement was finalized in April 1995. I was standing in this very room where I’m writing this blog, when Mom came up to me and said, “It’s over. We got the settlement, and got what we wanted.”

The only response I had was a nod of my head. I could scarcely believe it was over. This had gone on from the end of sixth grade to near the end of tenth grade, which was an eternity for me.

In the settlement agreement, Mom had numerous things agreed upon. One was the procedure of how to complain when we had issues. There was the financial component, which is confidential. And the major part of the agreement was that Northview had to hire Dennis Cokeley, an internationally renown expert on ASL and interpreting, to evaluate all of the interpreters at Northview, to determine which ones could interpret for me.

Cokeley was a research assistant under William Stokoe at Gallaudet, a co-founder of Sign Media, Inc, and a former RID president. This was a huge deal – Cokeley was truly an expert and extremely well known in the interpreting field. Mom had told her interpreter friends that Dennis Cokeley was coming to town, and that he would be having dinner with us that evening after evaluating all of the Northview interpreters.

One of her friends didn’t believe Mom, because who the heck that famous would show up to a mere peon’s house? So Mom invited the friend to stop by briefly and see for herself.

Cokeley and I were sitting around the dining table, waiting for Mom to finish cooking, when the doorbell rang. Mom said, “Oh, Dennis, would you please get the door?”

So Cokeley stood up and went to answer the door. He came back a moment later, looking confused. “That was odd. There was a lady at the door and when she saw me, she looked shocked and fled. What was that all about?”

Looking back, I’m impressed that Mom got Dennis Cokeley to do this. As a teenager, I had no idea who he was – just that he was supposed to be famous. But as a child, I had met famous people before, and none really impressed me because they were normal people. Nothing remarkable about them stood out to me. The only exception to that was Betty Colonomos but that wasn’t because of her fame. It was because she signed so gracefully, and I was so entranced watching her sign. I could watch her sign forever – I had never seen someone sign that beautifully before, and I knew that she genuinely cared about people.

Anyway, when Cokeley had finished his evaluation, nobody was really happy with his decision. He determined that the only interpreter that who could truly meet my needs was Ms. Marr. Both Northview and I objected – we didn’t want to be stuck with each other all day. So Cokeley relented and agreed to another interpreter who had just been hired that year, for a limited number of my classes. I now had two interpreters for all of my classes, and a majority of them was going to be interpreted by Ms. Marr.

The constant humiliation and harassment from Ms. Marr continued. It wasn’t until the following year in eleventh grade that Mom finally put a stop to the harassment for once and all.

It was near Christmas, and we had an annual Total Communication program potluck and performance by the students. A bunch of the staff and students were in the self-contained classroom, and we all were just chatting. Ms. Kalsbeek, who now was a teacher there at the high school asked me, “Jeannette, what do you think of having the ASL students participate in the performance?”

Ms. Marr lost it and she screamed at us, “Jeannette is only a student! How dare you give her that power or ask her for her opinion?! You are the teacher and you are in control, not her!“

Her face was contorted in rage. She was genuinely livid that a teacher had the nerve to ask me for my opinion. We all just stood there, stunned. I think that’s when Ms. Kalsbeek and most of the staff there finally admitted to themselves that my complaints about Ms. Marr was legitimate.

When I went home, I was furious. I was fed up with the constant outbursts by Ms. Marr. It was like she lived to crush me into a little obedient girl. I sat there and cried tears of rage, and I didn’t bother to quieten my sobs, like I used to. It was supposed to be over, and it wasn’t.

When Mom found out what had happened, she first called Kiley and they discussed what happened. Mom demanded that Kiley make Ms. Marr apologize and he said that after Ms. Marr’s apology in ninth grade, she swore she would never do another apology.

So Mom wrote a letter to Kiley. A very, very long letter confirming the conversation she had with Kiley and what had transpired that day in class with me and Ms. Marr. She wrote, “If a student had behaved like Ms. Marr had, that student would have been suspended for insubordination. Why is it that we hold students to a higher level of standards than we hold for adults? They are children, and they are learning how to behave appropriately. Ms. Marr is supposed to be an adult and she has zero excuse for her conduct.“

Then the next page was turned sideways, with the biggest font that could fit on that paper, and it read, “NEVER AGAIN!“

Mom said that if she heard me complaining about Ms. Marr ever again, she would ensure that Ms. Marr’s RID certification was removed permanently.

Ms. Marr apologized and that’s when the harassment and constant humiliation finally ended.

My senior year was the best year in high school. Ms. Marr behaved herself, and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. No complaints were filed that year.

During graduation, when I walked across the stage to receive my high school diploma, the person who shook my hand wasn’t the principal for most of the other students. It instead was Dr. Oldt, the superintendent, who shook my hand. I couldn’t help but think as Dr. Oldt shook my hand on the stage, “Damn. They must be really happy to see me go.”

As my friends and I posed for pictures, the other interpreter I had, approached Mom. She and Ms. Kalsbeek had been invited to my open house party, since they were the only two that complaints weren’t filed against and whom I liked as well.

The intepreter said to Mom, “Celeste, I realize Jeannette and Ms. Marr did not always get along. But can’t Ms. Marr be invited to the open house like Ms. Kalsbeek and I were? Ms. Marr loves your daughter and she wants to be part of this celebration.”

Mom gave her a stony gaze and said, “No. Ms. Marr is not going to be part of this celebration. Ms. Marr makes my daughter sad, and I cannot have that at the celebration. Jeannette needs to celebrate and be fully happy. I cannot do that to my daughter. I cannot have her celebrating, then see a person there, who tortured her. No… Ms. Marr is not invited.“

The interpreter gaped at Mom in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that Mom said that with Ms. Marr within earshot distance. Mom told me later that as we walked away, Ms. Marr just stood there, looking stricken.

I never saw her again.

Epilogue

Table of Contents

This is a blog serial – so please read the preceding chapter if you haven’t done so yet. To see the list of characters, please refer to the Preface post.

Ms. Marr never went that far again in the mainstream classes again, after being forced to apologize. Nevertheless, she took extreme pleasure at seeing me yelled at by the teacher or being in a frustrating situation.

She would also regale me with stories of her childhood. Long, boring stories about how dependent her deaf parents were on her, and how about she had to take care of her deaf and mentally retarded sister. Ms. Marr would also preach to me how wonderful religion was and took it upon herself to try to instill morals in me. I swore to myself that if I ever had hearing children, I would not be dependent on them like Ms. Marr’s parents were. I didn’t want my children to turn out like her.

I would also become extremely attuned to people’s body language. By observing Ms. Marr’s body language, and others as well, I would know whether today would be a good day or not. As an indirect result of that, I also became a very good actor because I would steel myself for what I knew would be a bad day coming, and I would act like it didn’t affect me. The next day, after something horrible happened, I would carry on perfectly normal conversations with her and with whoever else harassed me. Needless to say, it wasn’t good for my psyche. I clearly remember that year, at least once a week, I would cry myself to sleep over what happened to me that day.

Most of the time, I did report to Mom about what happened – Ms. Marr and the others didn’t terrify me like Joan did. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I think it’s because Joan was far more cold than anyone else, and even as a teenager I could see that Ms. Marr was just a pathetic creature. But anyway, there were a lot of complaints filed that year.

It also was during that year that LaSotta, the Northview superintendent, found out that his contract would not be renewed. It was never really acknowledged, but we all knew it was because of our lawsuit and appeal.

Near the end of ninth grade, we held another meeting. We were still stuck with the stay-put, but we needed to meet anyway, to discuss my progress and so on. It was during that meeting that Doreen told Mom that it was obvious that I had a learning disability in mathematics. Mom denied it and thought Doreen was full of it. She told Doreen, ‘Fine. Let’s find out. I’m going to take Jeannette to be evaluated by Dr. Greg Long and prove you wrong!’

So that summer, Mom drove me all the way down to Northern Illinois University, where Dr. Long was at. I was nervous, because I knew that I was definitely struggling with math, and that was unusual. Everything else wasn’t that difficult for me, so I suspected that Doreen could be right. It would explain why I was struggling so hard.

Dr. Long gave me a battery of psychological tests, and I’ll never forget this part. We were in a room with an one-way mirror, so grad students could watch Dr. Long administer the test to me. Up to this point, I had basically aced all of the tests. But when Dr. Long pulled out the puzzles, I knew I was in trouble. I was never good at puzzles, and I wanted to pass the tests, but I knew I couldn’t pass this one.

The puzzle pieces were spread out on the table, and this was just an example one – I should have been able to easily put together that puzzle. And I couldn’t. Dr. Long raised his eyebrows and put it together for me, and it was an apple.

A child’s puzzle, and I couldn’t put it together. I did have a learning disability in math.

When summer ended, Northview had a new superintendent, Dr. Pat Oldt. We also were finished with the state appeal and appealing to the federal courts. It was also arranged that I would have tutoring pretty much everyday after school in math. And of course, Ms. Marr was interpreting the tutoring sessions.

The tutoring sessions for the most part, were okay. It was one on one with the mainstream math teacher, so Ms. Marr couldn’t really get out of hand. But one day, Ms. Marr didn’t show up to the session, and both the teacher and I were puzzled. It was always understood that I would come by for tutoring, and I would inform them only if I didn’t want it that afternoon.

So I went home and told Mom about the no-show. She called Kiley and asked what was going on. Kiley told her he would call back after talking with Ms. Marr about it. A few hours later, Kiley called back and of course, laid all of the blame at my feet. He claimed that I didn’t tell Ms. Marr about the tutoring session, therefore she didn’t show. But unknown to Kiley, my brother who attended high school with me, had told Mom that Sherri E. collapsed that day, with chest pains.

So Mom put two and two together, and she told Kiley, “I don’t think so. I think this is what really happened. It’s understood by everyone that Jeannette will be there, unless she says she won’t be. I think that Ms. Marr was so worried about her co-worker, that she forgot all about the tutoring session.”

A long silence ensued. Then he softly said, “Yeah. You’re right. You’re not going to file a complaint about this, are you?”

Mom didn’t file a complaint over this one. There were already so many complaints that it was practically a bloodbath. But I was tired of getting the blame when something went wrong. Why was it always my fault?

When the appeal reached the federal courts, the magistrate was shocked. Mom told me that he wrote roughly along those lines, “I do not understand why this is here. This case should not be here. I see a long list of valid, legitimate concerns on the parents’ side, but all I see from the schools is a litany of personal, vicious criticisms leveled at the mother.

I see no substantial defense on the schools’ part, and I am looking at the schools with an extremely jaundiced eye. I am ordering the two parties to attempt to settle, or otherwise I am very inclined to rule in the parents’ favor.”

So in the winter in my tenth grade year, Mary Polonawski with two other regional directors sat down with Mom and attempted to write out a settlement agreement.

Mom would recount to me years later that they were sitting in a meeting room, and Mom had a box of complaints behind her. She at this point, was exhausted and enraged over what happened to me and her. At one point during the meeting one of the directors was dismissive of what Mom was saying. So she pulled up the box and pulled out a complaint and slapped it down on the table. “This complaint is about Deb Mills’ forgery. What do you think that is worth to a jury?”

Another complaint was slapped down on the table. “This complaint is about Ms. Marr’s pervasive harassment of my daughter. What do you think this is worth to a jury?”

Yet another complaint, complaint and complaint were slapped down on the table. “This complaint.. this complaint.. this complaint.. What do you think this is worth to a jury? What do you think this is worth to a jury? What do you think this is worth to a jury? I have a basement full of those boxes!”

They stared at her in stunned silence, then one of them said, “You’re going to bankrupt us! What do you think is going to happen? People are going to be upset with you for bankrupting us! Northview won’t be able to provide services to the students anymore if we go to a jury!”

Mom leaned over the table and snarled, “Me bankrupt you?! I did not do those things and nor did my daughter. Your school personnel did those things! And by God, someone is going to pay for this. There are going to be consequences for what you did. You were the ones who committed those crimes! CRIMES!“

I can only imagine that Mom’s raw words echoed through that room.

After a long silence, with tears on her face, Mary then said, “Okay…”

Mom stared at her, waiting.

After taking a deep breath, Mary then said, “What do you want in the agreement?”

Mom sat back in her chair with a small sigh. The long ordeal was finally about to end…

Continue to Chapter 26

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