Schools across America have switched to remote learning, how will this impact deaf and hard of hearing students, especially in mainstreamed settings? Learn what kind of technology should be provided, the difference between Synchronous and Asynchronous, and what accessibility in remote education means.

Explore our newest advocacy letter and position paper for PreK-12 remote learning: Link

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[TRANSCRIPT & DESC: A freeze frame of Tawny signing video in black and white. White bold text “COVID-19” and light white text “change in preK-12 remote learning” floats in.

TAWNY: Schools across the country have closed their classrooms because of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Schools have switched to teaching students remotely. This means if a deaf or a hard of hearing student starts to fall behind, the student may just accept the situation and consider it a different experience -- this is not okay. It is important that deaf and hard of hearing students have full access to their classes and education, even if it is remotely provided. It is also important for deaf and hard of hearing parents or families to have equal access to information from schools. This should not happen, they must have full access too. We hope our guidelines will help families advocate for what they need during these times when their deaf or hard of hearing child receives remote PreK-12 education. This video will cover various topics such as: technology, what remote education looks like, social development, support services, information from schools, and what you can do.

Technology is important for remote learning. To access remote education, Deaf and hard of hearing students should have a computer or tablet, the right software, and high speed Internet. If families are not able to afford any of these, the school should provide such technology or connect families to programs that are able to provide them.

We hope this information will help you. We have a list of resources on our website to be used for more social development opportunities, how to get legal access, or educational resources to be used for your child or for yourself and your family.

What does remote education look like? There are two kinds of remote education: Synchronous and Asynchronous. Synchronous education is when the teacher is teaching the class live, allowing live interaction during video conferencing. Asynchronous education is when the teacher provides instructions and materials for the students to do their work on their own at home, with no live video conferencing. Synchronous is live while asynchronous isn’t.

During synchronous remote education, the teacher and the students are on the same video conferencing platform online, and they should be able to communicate with each other. They should have the same access as they did in the classrooms whether it was with an interpreter on screen, using CART, or access to assistive listening devices. If a student uses an interpreter in the classroom, then the school needs to make sure that same interpreter is also interpreting in the video conferencing room. If the same interpreter is not available then the school must provide an appropriate state-approved and qualified interpreter who the student can understand and who should understand what the student says. Also, the screen size for the interpreter should be big enough for the student to access easily and understand what is being said. If a student uses a captioning service in the classroom, then the school needs to make sure that same captioning service is clearly accessible in the video conferencing platform. If that captioning service is not available then the school must provide a qualified captioning service. The school should not use computer generated captioning, also known as “automated speech recognition” (ASR) as it is not accurate enough to be used in a PreK-12 education setting. If a student uses an assistive listening device (ALD) in the classroom, then the school needs to make sure the student is able to access through their ALD what is being said in the video conferencing platform. The school should check to see what equipment the student can use at home to provide the same access during the video conferencing platform. If something isn’t working, the school needs to provide additional equipment to resolve any issues.

Video cuts to a dark blue background. Red alphabet letters of "N-A-D" in American Sign Language appear one by one in the center of the video. The copyright text appears in white underneath, "National Association of the Deaf, Copyright 2020, All Rights Reserved".]