Parent advocate claims textbooks found in dumpster outside Detroit Day School for the Deaf
Photographer: WXYZ
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Posted: 08/27/2012
DETROIT (WXYZ) - A parent advocate says she saw textbooks in a dumpster outside the Detroit Day School for the Deaf.
Deborah Love-Peel, mother of a former student at the school, says a tip led her to the dumpster where she found the books and snapped the pictures to document her claim.
She says there were up to 150 books, ranging from dictionaries to science books to American Sign Language textbooks.
"They weren't books that were tattered or torn or anything like that," says Love-Peel, who says the books were either new or slightly used.
The school district says the textbooks are obsolete.
This is just the latest incident that many in the deaf community and their supporters are upset about.
Starting this school year, the roughly 40 deaf students who attended the Day School for the Deaf are being mainstreamed into other school buildings.
"What they did was they took a building that only deaf students can use and gave it to administrators who could go anywhere," said Elena Herrada, a school board member. "It's criminal...it's people with absolutely no expertise and no morals are making these decisions."
Former principal of the School Jan Goike says the building was designed for deaf students and has special acoustics, smaller classrooms, and visual signals for fire alarms and severe weather.
As for the textbooks in the dumpster, Goike says she's not surprised.
"What else can we assume except that their main imperative at this time is to get everything out of there, everything related to Detroit Day School for the Deaf, and move in the administrators so the students cannot return," said Goike.
Goike, Love-Peel and Herrada wonder even if the text books are obsolete, why they could not have been sold or donated.
As for moving students out of the building, Wasko says federal law requires mainstreaming, and the majority of deaf students in Detroit, more than 100, already attend other school buildings. He adds that those buildings already have the programs needed for the hearing-impaired community, and the needed facility requirements like flashing alarms.
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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