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While in Chicago, NAD Board Representative from Region IV, David Reynolds and Sherri Collins, share several updates within Region IV.

Video description and transcript:

Video fades to a gradient background with dark blue to light blue, a grey National Association of the Deaf (NAD) logo is centered. Video fades to David and Sherri. The NAD logo appears as a light watermark in the bottom right corner.

DAVID and SHERRI: Hello!

DAVID: The two of us are at the third NAD Board meeting for this term, and it is being held here in Chicago! Believe it or not, we were both born and raised here in Illinois!

SHERRI: Yeah, it is nice to be back home, isn't it, David?

DAVID: It sure is. Right now, we represent Region IV, which is out west. I'll start off with Hawaii. In Hawaii, there is a push for a bill that would require standards for the teaching of ASL in schools. Hawaii is also advocating to require all movies to be captioned in theaters in their state.

SHERRI: Also, in Oregon, they've been very busy trying to expand the Office for Services for Deaf and Hard of Hearing. They're optimistic about the bill which is great news. Secondly, the Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Colorado is working on continuing their services and surviving a sunset review, and they seem optimistic about the bill.

DAVID: In Nevada, they're working on getting legislators to pass a Deaf Child Bill of Rights. In California, they're focused on the re-authorization of the EHDI bill and are making sure the bill emphasizes language acquisition for deaf and hard of hearing children from birth to age five. This emphasis is very important to include in the re-authorization.

SHERRI: Since you brought up the re-authorization of EHDI, you should know that the next National EHDI Conference is going to be in San Diego, California in Spring 2016! We need to get many deaf and hard of hearing people to attend; as a group, we can emphasize language acquisition while attending the conference.

DAVID: Yes, that's right. We hope to see many people from Region IV attend the conference. The more people there, the better our opportunity to highlight the importance of language acquisition.

SHERRI: Also I just remembered, I'd like to add something from Idaho. They're working on a bill for licensure for sign language interpreters. The bill is on the Governor's desk waiting for his review.

DAVID: Don't forget, this fall in September, many of us will be going to the NAD Leadership Training Conference (NLTC) in Birmingham, Alabama. I hope to see many of you there with us. We will also have our NAD Board meeting there.

DAVID and SHERRI: We'll see you there!

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