Sunday, July 14, 2013

Arizona schools for deaf, blind in upheaval

This spring, students at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind gathered rubber ducks and a coffin and staged elaborate protests with a goal of forcing a face-to-face conversation with Superintendent Robert Hill. Hill has become a lightning rod of controversy. He faces accusations of sexual harassment, disability discrimination, wrongful termination and retaliation. The conflicts have thrown the school system into chaos that has drawn in the governing board, several state agencies and Gov. Jan Brewer. At the protest, the students, many of them deaf, took to the sidewalks with signs urging passing cars to “honk loud.” They made masks of Hill’s face and held a pseudo-funeral, “burying” the administrator who they said had buried them with his disregard. They placed rubber ducks throughout the campus, a gesture suggesting Hill was a lame-duck superintendent. Read more at Arizona Central here. Or watch this video report on the Spring protest from KGUN-TV.