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On 4/15/04 the Missouri House of Representatives
passed HS HCS HB 1195, and sent it to the Senate, where yesterday it
was assigned to the Senate Financial and Governmental Organization,
Veterans’ Affairs and Elections Committee. HS HCS HB 1195 contains
language added in the House Professional
Registration and Licensing Committee by Representative Roy Holand
from Springfield that would require MCDHH to grant a "provisional
public school certificate" to any person nominated by a local school
district to interpret in their schools if that school district
indicates that it has searched for an interpreter who meets the
current certification and licensing requirements for educational
interpreters but cannot find one.
The current language of HS HCS HB 1195 would allow any school
district to hire anyone off the street to provide interpreting
services for deaf students, regardless of how incompetent they might
be. It would allow such a person to provide interpreting services
year after year without doing anything to improve their minimal
skills. It would completely exempt such persons from all the
licensing requirements for interpreters, thus freeing them from
following the Code of Ethics for Interpreters and allowing them to
work outside of schools in any setting that they chose, such as
emergency rooms, mental hospitals, and police stations. All of these
features are totally unacceptable to deaf and hard of hearing
consumers of interpreting services, and would do severe harm to deaf
students in public schools. The creation of this "Provisional Public
School Certificate" would be totally 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 see a few
other educational interpreters with minimal skills avoid getting a
license, obtaining CEUs, following the Skill Level Standards rule,
and following the Code of Ethics for Interpreters.
(e) UNFAIR to all non-educational interpreters in our state who have
worked hard to develop the skills necessary to allow them to
practice in legal, mental health, medical, financial, employment, or
entertainment settings, as a few interpreters without licenses would
now be able to interpret anywhere they wanted.
(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.
(h) UNFAIR to adult members of the Deaf community, as they will
again be forced to bear the stigma of deaf students doing poorly in
the educational system due to no fault of their own, and as they may
be provided with incompetent interpreter services in any setting by
an unlicensed interpreter without a remedy under Missouri law.
(i) UNFAIR to the vast majority of Missouri school districts that
have worked hard to comply with the requirements of the Missouri
Interpreters Certification System, provided and funded special skill
enhancement opportunities for their educational interpreters who
needed them, and take seriously their responsibility to provide
competent interpreting services in their schools, as a few districts
will be allowed to hire incompetent and unlicensed interpreters and
never have to do anything to help those interpreters improve their
skills.
In general, the language of HS HCS HB 1195 that would create a
"provisional public school certificate" is deficient in a great many
respects, and if it became law it would clearly result in some
educational interpreters continuing to provide interpreting services
in Missouri public schools even though they were totally unqualified
- a situation that is completely unacceptable. It can't be
emphasized strongly enough that by trying to side-step the entire
certification and licensure system that was adopted by the Missouri
legislature nearly a decade ago, the provisions of HS HCS HB 1195
could do GREAT DAMAGE TO DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING CHILDREN IN
MISSOURI CLASSROOMS, and its specific language would allow that
damage to be continued year after year.
For these reasons, the Missouri Commission for the Deaf and Hard of
Hearing strongly opposes the language of HS HCS HB 1195 concerning
the creation of a “provisional public school certificate.”
Therefore, we urge you to immediately contact the members of the
Senate Financial and Governmental
Organization, Veterans’ Affairs and Elections Committee and urge
them to delete the language in 209.309.1-3, 209.321.8, and
209.322(3) of HS HCS HB 1195 that would create a "provisional public
school certificate."
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