315: tuesday news and coffee roundup

Had some positive responses to my previous post about interpreters - please keep it coming guys, we have ingenuity and drive! I note a great Deafhood-related post at deafdc.com from Shane Feldman (my former Big Brother at MSSD!)

Have been working on the latest DITC project. It will involve a movie. I'm looking forward to distributing it and hoping it makes a difference.

In news: let's all get ready for poverty as our wages fail to keep up with price increases and the government does nothing.

More sad news from the Concord Monitor:

he Laurent Clerc Academy, a charter school for deaf children in Concord, is closing after its first full year due to low enrollment. The school had six students this year, three of whom are the children of the school's director and only full-time teacher, a married couple.

The elementary school, which operates in American Sign Language and written English, also had trouble recruiting its target population: Only half of its students are deaf.

The only public school dedicated to sign language in the state, the Laurent Clerc Academy was unable to hit its target goal of 10 children, despite over a half-million dollars in state and federal aid. As the second New Hampshire charter school to close its doors in a year, it also illustrates how difficult it can be to start a school from scratch.

Last summer, the state's first charter school, the Franklin Career Academy, shut down because of lack of money. Officials say they hope to reopen. Laurent Clerc officials hope their shutdown is temporary too.

"We'd open in a heartbeat if we had a sufficient number of students enrolled," Director Susan Brule said.

Maybe someone knows people who haven't heard about this academy? It sounds like an interesting experiment.

Pootie Corner: I was horrified to hear about this terrible Deaf Cat Experience. Contrast to this article from the Frederick News-Post.