SEATTLE — Amid a budget crisis, Seattle Public Schools leaders are considering closing up to 21 schools, and one of them is TOPS, the only K-8 school in the district with a program for the deaf and hard of hearing.
But at Wednesday's public Seattle Public Schools board meeting on the topic, the board did not provide something essential for those families: an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter.
Laura Gramer, her husband Brendan, and their two children are deaf. Both of their boys attend TOPS K-8 and, understandably, now have questions about their future.
But even though Gramer messaged the SPS board to request an ASL interpreter at Wednesday's highly-anticipated meeting, they did not provide one. She said they wrote back, saying, "We have not been able to find an interpreter that is available for tonight's meeting."
Considering the seriousness of what's at stake for her family, Gramer said she feels that is not acceptable.
Their fifth-grade son Lucas Gramer told KING 5, "I prefer that the school stays open. ... I don’t know. I might have to move. I don’t know where. What if there’s no other deaf people? What am I going to do?”
His mother said it is their right to have a clear understanding of what is being said at the meeting, especially by decisionmakers like SPS Superintendent Brent Jones. She said they have a lot of questions in the wake of this school consolidation announcement.
"This is a scary time for us, because we don't know what's happening," she said. "They also made a suggestion that I stay home and watch it on my laptop with captions, with AI captions. That's not sufficient enough. And I kind of felt this is important enough... sometimes the captions get it wrong."
Lucas' father agrees.
"Don't always put us at the short end of the stick, every time you make financial decisions, without understanding the true impact," said Brendan Gramer.
KING 5 reached out to Seattle Public Schools about this, and a communications specialist said the board and its superintendent will not be available for interviews. Instead, they sent a statement reading in part, "Our hope is to have ASL interpretation at future Seattle school board meetings when needed."
Gramer shared her response to that statement: "The word ‘hope,’ it’s a nice word. But that’s not a promise.”
At the board meeting, the school board's vice president broached the topic.
“We have had the sign language community consistently ask for sign language interpretation at our meetings, and it has not happened. And so I’m – on behalf of the board – going to apologize," said Michelle Sarju, who represents District 5. "I am making a public commitment that we are going to do our best to provide access to the people who deserve to participate in these meetings and should not be excluded because they can’t hear.”
At one point in the meeting, Jones took to the microphone to express his acknowledgment of the many concerns.
"It's gonna be a daunting challenge with less resources, but our bottom line is: how do we preserve the services that is essential for our students?" Jones said.
SPS leaders are expected to make a decision about school consolidation in December. Their hope is to save about $30 million. Currently the budget gap is at $94 million.
A communications specialist also told KING 5 Wednesday that "Seattle Public Schools values all our families and it is our goal to meet their language needs."