Below is my transcription of this video while I figure out how to try to add captions to it. I have done this in collaboration with J Krieger and a couple of other Deaf people. I hope this provides accessibility for those who do not sign.
You may have seen discussions on that popping all over Facebook, Twitter or among friends. Because some of us may not know much about it, and are asking for more information, I will share here what HB 1367 is all about. First, HB is an acronym for “House Bill” (Similarly, bills from the Senate side is abbreviated SB).
HB 1367 has been written and submitted by Cindy Noe, a House of Representatives member, whose home district includes Carmel. Her bill has three parts. The first part proposes a modification to the existing law concerning the Indiana School for the Deaf. The second and third parts propose additional laws.
The existing law related to the Indiana School for the Deaf (ISD) describes the school’s three purposes: 1) provide educational programs for day and residential students,
2) serve as an outreach center, and 3) serve as a resource center for Indiana teachers, including educational consulting for the whole state. This is the long-time existing law mandated by the state to fund ISD to meet those purposes.
Now, what does HB 1367 propose for this current law?
For the part about educational programs, the bill proposes to keep it as is. However, HB1367 proposes the second and third purposes of ISD be deleted.
In lieu of the deleted parts of existing law, the second part of this bill proposes that a new center related to the Deaf be established providing unbiased services similar to ones already existing at ISD with the current law. New staff positions and facilities shall be provided for the new center completely separated from ISD. And the funding for this, where shall it come from? Most likely, it will transferred out of the current ISD budget.
The third part of HB 1367 is shorter and proposes that the test scores for the Indiana School for the Blind and ISD must be reported and posted on the Department of Education website. This is with the understanding that if the scores are unsatisfactory, there won’t be any punitive action. This third part is not problematic.
It is the second part of HB 1367 that is what many of us are objecting to. The idea of moving outreach and consultative services away from ISD is not right, not good and definitely not the smart thing to do.
So how did this bill come to be? There are three key players: The author, Representative Cindy Noe, Office of Management and Budget Director Adam Horst, and Pete Miller, who recently investigated and audited ISD.
After Pete Miller did his study, he and Adam Horst gave the report to Noe.
Interestingly, both Noe and Horst are on the 10-member school board for ISD, all appointed by the governor. You may recall that not long ago, there was a controversy when the governor suddenly filled a few long-neglected vacancies on the board ending up with only one board member being Deaf. Now, what’s the idea of Noe and Horst, being on the school board, collaborating with the information from Pete Miller, and submitting this bill without any support or input from the ISD community?
We are not clear if the rest of the school board supported or were aware of Noe’s legislative action.
Now, is this bill good and beneficial for ISD? No. That is why we are now saying stop this bill through the democratic process with the legislature.
The current status of the bill is that it has been submitted, gone through the first reading, and has been assigned to the 13-member Education Committee.
We need to work hard and lobby those members to have the bill die in committee. Yet, we need to be prepared if the committee disregards us and moves the bill out to the House floor for a second reading, either as is (“engrossed”) or amended by the committee. This would mean lobbying the whole House, all 100 members to vote no on the bill. However, should the second reading proceed without any amendments, there will be a third reading, which means the actual voting on the bill.
If it passes in the House, it goes to the Senate for a similar procedure and vote. For further explanation of this process, watch my other vlog explaining the legislative process.
Right now, the bill is in the (House) Education Committee.
Now, there are some significant dates that we all should be aware of related to this bill. January 6 was the deadline for the Senate and January 9 the deadline for the House to submit new bills.
After that, no new bills can be submitted for the current session. In the Senate, we do not see any bills negatively impacting us. However, HB 1367 is currently in the House. January 31 is the deadline for the House to work through their submitted bills, have the third reading, and vote on all committee- approved bills. Again, January 31 is the deadline and it’s coming up real fast. Today is January 18. February 1 is the day the House sends whatever bills passed on to the Senate.
The Senate then sends the bills through committee and readings, and if the bills go through, the Senate votes on February 29. If the bills pass the Senate, it goes to the governor.
If there are delays, the House and the Senate are in session only until March 14 to resolve them. By law, they both must close on March 14. If the bill does not make it through by March 14, it automatically dies. So we need to keep those important dates in mind while we watch this bill through the legislature.
If you are opposed to this bill, what can you do? First, you need to understand where the bill is now. As I said, it is currently in the Education Committee. You need to state your opposition through emails, letters, phone calls and in-person visits with these House representatives. They have an obligation to hear what you have to say because we are voters. We voted them in, and they are supposed to serve our wishes and seek out our opinions.
One way is to stall this bill as much as possible. Fortunately, the House Democrats may be helping by fighting another bill, the Right to Work bill. Even though that bill is not related to HB 1367, it has been very controversial with the Democrats walking out several times in protest, which may help stall things in the legislature so it won’t have the time to look at HB 1367 and let it die.
Basically, HB 1367 proposes to take outreach out of ISD, which means ISD and its budget will be deeply cut. Will this mean that fewer students have direct connection to ISD? Will babies and parents have extremely limited opportunities accessing ISD, being diverted to programs focusing exclusively on speech and listening, or limited educational options around the state? Will the new replacement center have a qualified program and staff? There are too many unknown answers with this bill.
ISD has many years of experience serving students and their families. ISD is already providing information to parents about everything, not just ASL, “unbiasedly.” Yet organizations like Hear Indiana and AG Bell have been continually seeking ways to block parents from learning about or be exposed to ISD and ASL, wanting to steer them towards their biased, single way of dealing with Deaf children. We do not agree with that.
Below is my transcription of this video while I figure out how to try to add captions to it. I have done this in collaboration with J Krieger and a couple of other Deaf people. I hope this provides accessibility for those who do not sign.
bpickell12 1 month ago
What is HB 1367?
You may have seen discussions on that popping all over Facebook, Twitter or among friends. Because some of us may not know much about it, and are asking for more information, I will share here what HB 1367 is all about. First, HB is an acronym for “House Bill” (Similarly, bills from the Senate side is abbreviated SB).
bpickell12 1 month ago
HB 1367 has been written and submitted by Cindy Noe, a House of Representatives member, whose home district includes Carmel. Her bill has three parts. The first part proposes a modification to the existing law concerning the Indiana School for the Deaf. The second and third parts propose additional laws.
The existing law related to the Indiana School for the Deaf (ISD) describes the school’s three purposes: 1) provide educational programs for day and residential students,
bpickell12 1 month ago
2) serve as an outreach center, and 3) serve as a resource center for Indiana teachers, including educational consulting for the whole state. This is the long-time existing law mandated by the state to fund ISD to meet those purposes.
Now, what does HB 1367 propose for this current law?
For the part about educational programs, the bill proposes to keep it as is. However, HB1367 proposes the second and third purposes of ISD be deleted.
bpickell12 1 month ago
In lieu of the deleted parts of existing law, the second part of this bill proposes that a new center related to the Deaf be established providing unbiased services similar to ones already existing at ISD with the current law. New staff positions and facilities shall be provided for the new center completely separated from ISD. And the funding for this, where shall it come from? Most likely, it will transferred out of the current ISD budget.
bpickell12 1 month ago
The third part of HB 1367 is shorter and proposes that the test scores for the Indiana School for the Blind and ISD must be reported and posted on the Department of Education website. This is with the understanding that if the scores are unsatisfactory, there won’t be any punitive action. This third part is not problematic.
bpickell12 1 month ago
It is the second part of HB 1367 that is what many of us are objecting to. The idea of moving outreach and consultative services away from ISD is not right, not good and definitely not the smart thing to do.
So how did this bill come to be? There are three key players: The author, Representative Cindy Noe, Office of Management and Budget Director Adam Horst, and Pete Miller, who recently investigated and audited ISD.
After Pete Miller did his study, he and Adam Horst gave the report to Noe.
bpickell12 1 month ago
Interestingly, both Noe and Horst are on the 10-member school board for ISD, all appointed by the governor. You may recall that not long ago, there was a controversy when the governor suddenly filled a few long-neglected vacancies on the board ending up with only one board member being Deaf. Now, what’s the idea of Noe and Horst, being on the school board, collaborating with the information from Pete Miller, and submitting this bill without any support or input from the ISD community?
bpickell12 1 month ago
We are not clear if the rest of the school board supported or were aware of Noe’s legislative action.
Now, is this bill good and beneficial for ISD? No. That is why we are now saying stop this bill through the democratic process with the legislature.
The current status of the bill is that it has been submitted, gone through the first reading, and has been assigned to the 13-member Education Committee.
bpickell12 1 month ago
We need to work hard and lobby those members to have the bill die in committee. Yet, we need to be prepared if the committee disregards us and moves the bill out to the House floor for a second reading, either as is (“engrossed”) or amended by the committee. This would mean lobbying the whole House, all 100 members to vote no on the bill. However, should the second reading proceed without any amendments, there will be a third reading, which means the actual voting on the bill.
bpickell12 1 month ago
If it passes in the House, it goes to the Senate for a similar procedure and vote. For further explanation of this process, watch my other vlog explaining the legislative process.
Right now, the bill is in the (House) Education Committee.
Now, there are some significant dates that we all should be aware of related to this bill. January 6 was the deadline for the Senate and January 9 the deadline for the House to submit new bills.
bpickell12 1 month ago
After that, no new bills can be submitted for the current session. In the Senate, we do not see any bills negatively impacting us. However, HB 1367 is currently in the House. January 31 is the deadline for the House to work through their submitted bills, have the third reading, and vote on all committee- approved bills. Again, January 31 is the deadline and it’s coming up real fast. Today is January 18. February 1 is the day the House sends whatever bills passed on to the Senate.
bpickell12 1 month ago
The Senate then sends the bills through committee and readings, and if the bills go through, the Senate votes on February 29. If the bills pass the Senate, it goes to the governor.
If there are delays, the House and the Senate are in session only until March 14 to resolve them. By law, they both must close on March 14. If the bill does not make it through by March 14, it automatically dies. So we need to keep those important dates in mind while we watch this bill through the legislature.
bpickell12 1 month ago
If you are opposed to this bill, what can you do? First, you need to understand where the bill is now. As I said, it is currently in the Education Committee. You need to state your opposition through emails, letters, phone calls and in-person visits with these House representatives. They have an obligation to hear what you have to say because we are voters. We voted them in, and they are supposed to serve our wishes and seek out our opinions.
bpickell12 1 month ago
One way is to stall this bill as much as possible. Fortunately, the House Democrats may be helping by fighting another bill, the Right to Work bill. Even though that bill is not related to HB 1367, it has been very controversial with the Democrats walking out several times in protest, which may help stall things in the legislature so it won’t have the time to look at HB 1367 and let it die.
That’s an overview of HB 1367.
bpickell12 1 month ago
Basically, HB 1367 proposes to take outreach out of ISD, which means ISD and its budget will be deeply cut. Will this mean that fewer students have direct connection to ISD? Will babies and parents have extremely limited opportunities accessing ISD, being diverted to programs focusing exclusively on speech and listening, or limited educational options around the state? Will the new replacement center have a qualified program and staff? There are too many unknown answers with this bill.
bpickell12 1 month ago
ISD has many years of experience serving students and their families. ISD is already providing information to parents about everything, not just ASL, “unbiasedly.” Yet organizations like Hear Indiana and AG Bell have been continually seeking ways to block parents from learning about or be exposed to ISD and ASL, wanting to steer them towards their biased, single way of dealing with Deaf children. We do not agree with that.
bpickell12 1 month ago
Jay This is a great speech or clarification that I ever watched tonight
I do understand more by now with your help and I do appreciate your willingness or contribution to express ur view.
Thank you very much
What can I do to help out?
Guy
rosshead100 1 month ago