AFTER 30 years of ensuring access to primary education for the hearing impaired, the work of Danny Williams School for the Deaf is being hampered by the failure of some parents to get involved and a lack of affordable transportation to keep attendance levels up.

In fact, principal Maureen Simmonds says that parents can sometimes be a hindrance to their children’s development.

“The students perform better with the support from their parents but you still have some parents who still do not attend PTA’s (parent-teacher association meetings), who still do not come in to parent consultation, who still do not try to learn the language of their students, so you are inhibited,” notes the woman who has taught at Danny Williams for more than 20 years.

On the transportation issue, Simmonds says more than 50 per cent of her students travel to school on contracted vehicles, and every time there is an increase in transportation costs the students’ attendance dwindle.

“Many parents are not comfortable with sending their children on the public buses because of their hearing problems and the fact that many have multiple disabilities,” she tells Career & Education. “So every time there is an increase in fares, like we are having now plus the recession and all that, the parents must absorb those costs and most of them cannot afford it.”

It is for this reason that she has called on the public for support.

“I would really like to get some partnership from Corporate Jamaica for the parents in getting a bus. I would really appreciate if someone could give the school a bus so it could be a bit easier in getting the students to school. Right now attendance has gone down because of that problem,” Simmonds says, adding that parents pay as much as $2,000 weekly to transport their children to school.

Tucked away on a rocky road behind the Papine High School in Hope Estate, St Andrew, the institution started as the preparatory department of the Lister Mair/Gilby School before its name was change in 1978 in recognition of the work done by R Danny Williams with deaf persons.

The school, which now has 100 students enrolled, landmarks a very important part of Jamaica’s history, having started in the early 1970s, when, due to an outbreak of the dreaded Rubella virus, many children were born hearing impaired.

It is today run based on guidelines supported by the Association for the Deaf and the Ministry of Education. Students undergo hearing evaluation at the Thelma Tweedle Clinic in Kingston before they are accepted into the school.

Since its inception, students have excelled in several areas. They were winners of the Deaf Dance Festival from 2006 to 2008, they were first in the recent Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) poster competition. They also won gold in the 4-H club sandwich-making competition.

Last year, nine students sat the Grade Six Achievement Test and all matriculated into the Lister Mair/Gilby secondary school programme.

One student in particular, Laurie-Anne Hitchener, performed exceptionally well, Simmonds says.

“Her communication task grades were in the nineties, language in the seventies and I think some in the sixties. She performed very well. She was on par or above many of her hearing counterparts,” adds the delighted principal.

Simmonds — whose passion for teaching deaf students came out of her witnessing rescue workers struggle to communicate with a pregnant woman, who had been seriously injured in a fire — notes that she has learnt to deal with and help her students get over the stigma associated with their disability.

“People are quick to feel sorry because they are deaf, but they don’t want that. They want to feel like persons whose ability can far outshine their disability; they want to be given the opportunity to do what their counterparts can do,” Simmonds says.

Despite the challenges, the principal maintains that she is satisfied with the offerings of the institution and adds that the school is one of the best when it comes to educating the hearing impaired.

“This is a school equal to any other school. The teachers are trained, the environment is inviting and secure. At the end of the day, there is always more to do but we want to feel that we are giving it our best, regardless of the limited resources,” she said.