Access for PreK-12 remote learning isn’t limited to the classroom -- social development must also be accessible.

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 “accessing different areas of preK-12 remote learning” floats in.

TAWNY: With asynchronous remote education, the school needs to make sure anything teachers send to their students, as well as families, are also accessible. If the teacher makes a video for students to watch, then it should be captioned and/or an interpreter should be provided to make sure the deaf or hard of hearing student has access to the video. It is important that deaf and hard of hearing students get the accessible information and material at the same time as other students. There should not be any delays for deaf and hard of hearing students to get access for these materials. If a family sees their child struggling, needing more accommodations, needing more support, or an extra interpreter or more captioning -- this request can be done directly to the school asking for extra accommodations due to this unique situation.

Education is important, and so is social development. Like all other students, deaf and hard of hearing students need to interact with their peers for social development. Remote learning makes it harder for mainstreamed deaf and hard of hearing students to interact with their hearing or deaf peers. Schools need to provide opportunities for students to interact with each other while meeting online, whether the deaf or hard of hearing student needs to interact with hearing peers or for deaf and hard of hearing students to meet with each other during remote education. We encourage families to look for support from local parent organizations, state advocacy organizations or national programs, as some provide online events. Families can also ask their child’s school to consult with their state’s school(s) for the deaf to help with encouraging social development interaction between students online.

Schools must make sure that deaf and hard of hearing students have access to support services such as: itinerant teachers of the deaf, speech pathologists, ASL specialists, educational audiologists, and other related service providers. Whatever services the deaf or hard of hearing student used before should still continue remotely. The school can make sure that the deaf or hard of hearing student meets with those support service providers through the video conferencing platform. The school needs to make sure those support service providers have access to the same technology to be able to support the deaf and hard of hearing students appropriately.

Schools should make sure that any information shared with deaf and hard of hearing families are accessible which means that when schools share any videos with the families, the videos should be accurately captioned or interpreted.

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".]