Rural school districts struggle to find interpreters

Last Updated on Saturday, 08 May 2010 10:31 Written by KUSA*TV Friday, 27 November 2009 20:41

Mariah Kowach feels like she's living on an island. She's a deaf 7th grader at Craig Middle School with no real effective way of talking with anybody. "For the class, I can't get work done, turned in," Kowach said through her limited vocalization skills. Kowach knows sign language, but no one else in the entire school district does.

Craig, like many other rural school districts across the state, has trouble hiring sign language interpreters to help deaf students. "She would have communication problems and sometimes meltdowns where she'd get real frustrated," Rod Kowach, her father, said. Rod and his wife Karen do not blame the school district. They have done all they can, but there is a shortage of interpreters willing to work in small towns. The last licensed interpreter Mariah had in school was five years ago.

"A sign language interpreter slash para/aide has that additional help to give her," Karen Kowach, her mother, said. Rod and Karen believe that without an interpreter, their daughter's potential is literally lost without translation. "I don't want to hold her back and you look at it sometimes and realize that her potential ain't really there," Rod Kowach said. Teachers like April Lyons do what they can. They do wear an FM transmitter which isolates their voices to be sent directly into Mariah's hearing aide. Lyons uses a lot of eye contact and one-on-one lessons. But, without a good way of explaining things to Mariah, there's only so much teaching, teachers can do. Mariah's parents are afraid the problem will continue to get worse.

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"Especially getting more into middle school, high school with harder subjects and so forth, that sign language will help her bridge that gap," Rod Kowach said. Christine Villard is the assistant superintendent of the Moffat County School District. "With other surrounding districts, we share resources. Not all of us have full-time positions, but all of us have similar needs," Villard said. Villard says the district conducts an aggressive campaign at universities around Colorado to try to recruit students who will soon be graduating.

Originally posted at http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=127740&catid=188