| Section 209.321.6 of SCS
HCS HB 1040 presents a POTENTIALLY DEVASTATING ATTACK upon
the Missouri Interpreters Certification and Licensure System, and
would result in GREAT HARM TO DEAF STUDENTS in Missouri
public schools. We must do everything we can to get that section
deleted from the bill. That section reads as follows:
"209.321.6.
A person who is an employee or independent contractor of a Missouri
public school district and is providing interpreting as part of
special education, related services, or supplementary aids and
services for students with disabilities, subject to the requirements
of state and federal law, shall be exempt from the provisions of
sections 209.319 to 209.339."
If this became law it would
completely exempt all educational interpreters in Missouri public
schools directly from the licensure law and thus indirectly from all
certification requirements. If this became law, it would:
1. Completely eliminate statewide
competency standards for educational interpreters, and step
backwards to a system of arbitrary and inconsistent judgments made
by individual school districts.
2. Completely eliminate the
assessment of educational interpreter skills by professional
evaluators working for an independent agency (MCDHH) that has had
seven years experience in interpreter assessment and has certified
over 700 interpreters, and step backwards to a system of
individual assessments being made by school administrators who know
little or nothing about interpreting and have a vested interest in
hiring the individuals they are supposedly evaluating.
3. Completely eliminate the
requirement that all educational interpreters have to engage in
continuing education activities in order to maintain and possibly
upgrade their interpreting skills, and step backwards to a
system in which educational interpreters could interpret for as long
as they pleased without ever doing anything to improve their skills
(no matter how limited or inadequate those skills might be).
4. Completely eliminate the
requirement that all educational interpreters have to adhere to the
Ethical Rules of Conduct for Interpreters, and step backwards to
a system in which educational interpreters could freely discuss
anything and everything that they might have learned in a private
conversation involving a deaf student for whom they were
interpreting. Every professional group has a code of ethics, and it
would be a terrible social policy to completely exempt educational
interpreters from following their rules of ethical behavior.
5. Completely eliminate limits
governing how long a person with minimal interpreting skills can
continue to provide services in our public schools, and step
backwards to allowing interpreters with limited or inadequate skills
to retard the progress of deaf students by continuing to provide
services in our schools forever.
6. Completely eliminate a basic
certification and licensure system for educational interpreters that
has been in place in Missouri for nearly a decade and that has been
a leading role model in the national movement toward requiring
either certification and/or licensure of educational interpreters in
states throughout the country, and take a step backwards to a
system that has no statewide performance standards for educational
interpreters and provides fewer remedies under state law to deaf
students and/or their parents who feel they have been denied equal
access in the Missouri public school system.
If section 209.321.6 of SCS HCS HB
1040 were to become law, it would be unfair to almost everyone. In
particular, it is:
(a) UNFAIR to students who rely on
interpreters, as they will fall further and further behind their
peers due to inadequate communications support in their classrooms.
(b) UNFAIR to other students in
classes with students who use interpreters, as they will be
deprived of the full participation of their classmates in class
discussions due to the inability of interpreters to accurately
convey the depth and richness of the ideas of the students who are
dependent upon interpreters.
(c) UNFAIR to teachers who
work hard to develop lesson plans and present materials that add
significantly to their students education, as they will have their
energies and creativity wasted because so little of what they say in
their classroom is successfully communicated to their students who
use interpreters.
(d) UNFAIR to the vast majority of
educational interpreters in our state who have worked hard to
develop their interpreting skills to meet the legal requirements of
the Skill Level Standards rule, who take seriously their ethical
responsibility to maintain their skills through participating in
continuing education activities, and who maintain their professional
demeanor through appropriate licensing in Missouri, as they will now
have their professional status weakened by the fact that a few other
educational interpreters with minimal skills will be allowed to
interpret in Missouri public schools for as long as they desire.
(e) UNFAIR to all non-educational
interpreters in our state who have worked hard to develop the
skills necessary to allow them to engage in the practice of
interpreting in Missouri, and now will see educational interpreters
not have to get a license, not have to be certified, not have to
engage in continuing education activities, and not have to abide by
a professional code of ethics.
(f) UNFAIR to parents of
students who rely on interpreters in their classrooms, as their
children will not have an equal opportunity to progress in the
Missouri educational system, but rather will be relegated to the
status of "second class learners" due to deficient communications
support in their classes.
(g) UNFAIR to Missouri taxpayers,
as they will in the short term be forced to pay for
incompetent interpreting services, and will in the long term be
forced to pay for the many things that result from inadequate
intervention services being provided to young children with hearing
loss.The language of section 209.321.6 of SCS HCS HB 1040
must not be allowed to become law! All like-minded advocates must
immediately inform all Missouri legislators and Governor Holden how
you feel about this matter. Send e-mail to all of our legislators
telling them to "delete section 209.321.6 of SCS HCS HB 1040, as it
would produce great harm to deaf students in Missouri public
schools." Ask Governor Holden
to "speak out in favor of retaining our current interpreter
licensing and certification laws, and veto any bill that comes to
him from the legislature that would exempt educational interpreters
from our licensing laws." |
