Families are Critical Partners
Graphic of a triangle that has a student at the top point parents on the left point and teacher on the right point text in the middle of the triangle reads It Takes Three
Happy November! The theme for this month is based on the third essential principle from Optimizing Outcomes for Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing Educational Service Guidelines: Families are critical partners. Keep reading for resources and more!
Educators Empowering Families
An article from the 2019 Odyssey (Neria, Young, & Colantuono, 2019) discusses how empowering families leads to student success. Read a snippet from the article:

When an education department brought students who communicate through
American Sign Language (ASL) and students who communicate through
spoken language onto the same campus, educators focused on empowering
families to advocate—whatever their choice of communication.

Recently, our district reconfigured our program for deaf and hard of hearing students, combining the Total Communication (TC) and Listening and Spoken Language (LSL) programs for elementary students and relocating students and staff into a single school. This prompted staff to reflect on and discuss the pedagogy unique to each program. We analyzed approaches to language, education, and advocacy for our students and families.
We realized that while our programs reflected diverse principles and approaches, extensive commonalities exist. The primary commonality was the need for families in both programs to receive support for working with their children in language, whether the language was signed or spoken. We needed to help families learn how to provide and incorporate language into their daily routines, and we needed to advocate and teach our families how to advocate for themselves and for their children to maximize learning for
everyone.
News from RMTC-D/HH
Flyer of panel of experts for November TA Live with pictures of Richard Flores from FSDB Karen Putz from Hands and Voices Dawn Varner from Family Center on Deafness and Wendy Williams from FSDB
RMTC-D/HH is pleased to announce the panel of experts for the November TA-Live! webinar: Richard Flores, Karen Putz, Dawn Varner, and Wendy Williams. Richard Flores, Karen Putz, and Wendy Williams are all parents of children who are D/HH and are also in the field of Deaf Education. Dawn Varner is the family support specialist for Family Center on Deafness. Come join us to hear their experiences as parents raising children who are D/HH and working with families of children who are D/HH.

Have a question for the panelists? Fill out a short form in advance!

The webinar will be aligned with the third principle of the Optimizing Outcomes Guidelines, “Families are critical partners.”
spotlight
Teacher Spotlight
Madonia “Dawnie” Clark is an itinerant PreK-12th grade teacher of the deaf/hard of hearing (ToDHH) with Bay District Schools in Panama City, FL which is located in the Florida panhandle. She has been working in the field of education for 37 years, 26 of those years have been in Deaf Education, including working as an educational interpreter for two years. It was during her time as an educational interpreter that she discovered the resources and support from the Florida Educational Interpreter Project (EIP) and RMTC-D/HH. Dawnie is passionate about Deaf Education and enjoys connecting people to resources. She has completed training in the following research-based interventions/curricula for students who are D/HH offered by RMTC-DHH: Visual Phonics, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with Visual Phonics, and Fingerspelling Our Way to Reading.
Photo of Dawnie Clark sitting with a student at a table working on Fingerspelling Our Way to Reading curriculum. Both Dawnie and the student are wearing face coverings.
You can read the interview with Dawnie Clark, ToDHH in Bay County. RMTC-D/HH was interested in learning more about her experience as a ToDHH pertaining to Principle 3 of the Optimizing Outcomes Guidelines, “Families are critical partners.”

Know an educator (e.g., teacher, SLP, interpreter, educational audiologist, paraprofessional) who is doing amazing things with students who are D/HH? Fill out this form to nominate someone or even yourself!
spotlight
Expanded Skills Spotlight
Florida Expanded Skills logo Yellow star with blue bridge underneath Inside the star reads Florida Expanded Skills Skills for Success Bridge from top left to right reads FL ES DHH for Students who are DHH FL ES DHH Bottom left to right reads Communication
Title: Communicating with Others
Standards: 
SP.PK12.DH.5.4a: Communicate with others in ways appropriate for the relationship, such as friends and family. (PK-5)

SP.PK12.DH.5.4b: Communicate with others in ways appropriate for the relationship, such as peers, authority figures in the school and community, and employers. (6-12)
Brief description of the lesson*: In this unit plan, students learn the difference between aggressive, passive, and assertive communication styles. Students will apply their knowledge of communication styles in negotiating different scenarios.

*Please note: These lessons are meant to act as guidelines for teachers to use and adapt according to their need.

Have an idea or lesson plan for Expanded Skills standards? Email your idea to RMTC-D/HH!
RMTC DHH Teacher Toolkit logo with toolbox with hearing aids ruler and hearing stethoscope
Resources:
ï»ż
In order to keep all the resources in one place, RMTC-D/HH has created a LiveBinder that is categorized by the Ten Essential Principles for Effective Education of Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing from the Optimizing Outcomes for Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing Educational Service Guidelines. To see the resources available by each category, check out the LiveBinder!
RMTC DHH Loan Library logo with state of Florida and books
Resources that are in the RMTC-D/HH Media and Materials Loan Library* that have relevance to the essential principle “Families are critical partners.”:

  • Deaf Culture Lecture: Shared Wisdom For Families (Catalog Number: 133) Enjoy stories in this DVD about families with deaf and hearing members, and learn about raising a deaf child while improving your ASL skills. Great for deaf studies, ASL receptive skills, and interpreting practice.

  • Mom and Dad Your Deaf Child Is Ok! (Catalog Number: 116): This DVD Mom & Dad, Your Deaf Child is Ok! includes interviews with families, both hearing and deaf, about how they dealt or are dealing with issues related to their deaf children. Researchers, administrators, and educators from deaf-related fields offer their valuable expertise about deaf children. There are six essential issues: Concerns, Cochlear Implant, Which Language? Family Involvement, No Time, Too Busy, Too Hard, and Words of Advice.

  • Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father (Catalog Number: 1839) In Deaf Daughter, Hearing Father, Medugno shares practical information on many of the common challenges faced by hearing parents. He provides a list of games that hearing and deaf children can play together, an important consideration for many families. His enthusiasm for all possibilities, from exploring the potential of video phones to helping stage musicals, reveals his abiding devotion to Miranda. Such a foundation has enabled her to feel proud, confident, and happy in her pursuits. At the same time, Medugno recognizes that the rewards of having a deaf daughter are far greater than he could have hoped for or imagined.

  • No Dad, It Does Not Involve a Hippopotamus! (Catalog Number: 1858) Written by a dad of a child with special needs, the book talks about the joys, hopes, dreams, concerns, and issues of raising a child with special needs. The author talks about his and his family's life, and how his son's special needs have changed - often for the positive - their lives. The book is organized by topics, and is written as a series of articles and short stories that explain these topics and their impact on the family, in an often uplifting and poignant way as the child moves from childhood to adulthood. Topics include a number of different issues including areas such as being the parent of a child with special needs, perseverance, hope, travel, school, as well as many others. The author approaches these topics from a unique perspective.

*Florida stakeholders can borrow these and many other resources from RMTC-D/HH's Media and Materials Loan Library, for FREE. Each material comes with a return label, making even the shipping at no charge to the borrower.
RMTC-D/HH Family Corner
Family Corner logo with hands holding a house with a heart in the middle of house with RMTC logo in the top left hand corner
Family Corner is a section for professionals that will address how they can help parents to be more involved and be more collaborative. This section will be from the perspective of a parent of a child who is deaf and has other disabilities and who also happens to be an educational professional. Depending on the topic, this section may deal with how to approach parents on the topic or help educators understand the parents’ perspectives.

What families need to know about: Families being critical partners

Families have a right, morally, ethically, and legally to be involved in the education of their children. The parents or guardians in the family are the people who have primary responsibility for all aspects of a child’s life, which includes education. This makes them critical partners in the educational process. Educational professionals must recognize this and proactively work to make sure that parents are not only included in the educational process, but informed and educated in ways that make them effective participants. A parent’s perspective adds value to conversations among the educational team. With the caregivers as critical partners, the educational entity is able to do two things: First, it is able to meet all its requirements under the law and meet its moral and ethical responsibilities to the child, the family, the school, and society. Second, this collaboration also opens doors to other aspects of the child that are not available in a strictly educational setting. This added information improves the ability of an educational team to understand the child, the child’s educational needs, and needs that may exist in the other domains. Often, only a parent or other family member who sees him- or herself as an accepted and trusted partner in an educational team can provide extracurricular information that can help shape the educational process for a child. Parents are the doorway to significant pieces of data that educational professionals aren’t able to access. 

One of the realities of education is that it does not exist in a bubble. The road to educational success often involves understanding how the outside world is impacting a child’s education. Why is a child not getting homework done? Maybe the child lives in a single parent home where the parent works evenings and the child helps care for younger siblings during that time. Maybe a child is simply hard to reach on an educational level. It may be possible that the child has interests outside of school that can be used by a teacher or educational professional to reach the child and pull him or her into the educational process. Maybe the child has been exposed to some kind of trauma. A parent or other trusted family member is privy to all aspects of the child’s life integral to learning and can inform the educational team of interests, living arrangements, and even trauma, all of which will impact a child’s ability to learn. The environment outside of the school setting molds and shapes a child. To be able to educate, educators must consider the whole child. That means accounting for both positive and negative external inputs. The parent who is seen as, and understands he or she is, a critical partner, will be able to help the educational team understand and account for those external positive and negative influences. The parents in that role can work alongside educators to build positive and supportive environments for learning, develop effective multi-tier supports for the child, and create opportunities to navigate any rough waters that may impede a child’s access to instruction.
Did you know?
  • Calling all Florida educators and therapists! Passport to Learning destinations have begun! Join the Problem Solving/Response to Intervention (PS/RtI) Technology Project, in collaboration with the Assistive Technology Industry Association, the Access Project, the Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired, and the Resource Materials and Technology Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, on a journey to increase your knowledge and skills in the areas of assistive technology, accessible educational materials and UDL. Each destination includes travel guides to coach, mentor, and empower the travelers’ new learning community. This adventure will span three months of fun and excitement. As you gather artifacts along the way you will strengthen your practice and impact student achievement. View the Passport to Learning flyer for more information.

  • The University of North Florida will be offering a series of information sessions on its Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Deaf Education. During the upcoming virtual information sessions on Nov. 4, 11 and 18 from 6 - 6:30 p.m., Dr. Caroline Guardino, associate professor, will answer questions about the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Deaf Education. This 15 credit hour, online certificate program was designed specifically for those currently holding a Bachelor's degree and work with or aspire to work with students who are deaf/hard of hearing. If you need accommodations, e-mail Dr. Guardino at least five days prior to the event date.

  • Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss has answered big questions from the field of deaf education including, ‘What assessments should we be using?’ and in these trying times, “How can we assess during COVID?” Check out their article “Assessment Must Go On!: Tailored Identification of Access & Educational Needs” for more information and resources!

  • The Florida School for the Deaf and Blind (FSDB) is offering a Virtual Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC) Interactive Learning winter session on December 12, 2020, titled, "Creative Minds Creating Thoughtful Creations." Space is limited and registration is required so please do not wait to sign up. Registration closes December 4, 2020, to allow time to ship materials.
Upcoming Events: Save the Date!

Check out the RMTC-D/HH 2020-2021 Calendar for more upcoming events!
Do More. Be More. Achieve More.
RMTC-D/HH provides Tech Notes as a free resource to teachers, professionals, and parents around the state in order to pass along potentially useful information and expand the knowledge and opportunities available to educators and families of children who have hearing loss. This email was funded by the Florida Department of Education Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services through federal assistance under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), Part B funds. The information included does not reflect any specific endorsement by any parties involved.