The Roundup collects news articles reflecting Deaf people and issues from around the world. The aim is to provide a Deaf perspective on news and events. In this issue: RID Educational Interpreting vote, more deaf schools in danger, the story of a deaf-blind child left abandoned in wintry temperatures, and news about the upcoming Dummy Hoy documentary.

A technical error that hid one paragraph below in HTML coding has been repaired.

On April 12th, the RID completed voting on their new standards for educational interpreting. Results have yet to be announced. These standards will have an effect on how the mainstream environment functions.

Note: The introduction of this video says "Two Open Letters," unfortunately, due to time constraints, we only completed one! The second will be following... In this letter, I contact RID President Cheryl Moose and share my concerns.

ASL version here. This letter was sent early this morning, April 12th, to President Cheryl Moose of the RID. I hope to hear a positive result, which to me is postponing the vote or putting it on hold until further review. One small clarifaction: the vote in question has been ongoing for the last few weeks and ends today.

Dear Ms. Moose:

I am contacting you regarding the Educational Interpreting Standard Practice Paper being voted on today. I'm a teacher and have a vested interest in how interpreters work in the classroom. In March, when I was informed by an ASL interpreter who worked with a Deaf student of mine that there would be a vote coming up on educational interpreting, I was excited. As a Deaf person who works in the public school environment teaching English, who's literally experienced ASL interpreting all my life in education, I know there's a lot of potential but also a lot of need for change.

The News Roundup takes a look at news, with a Deaf perspective. This week: more Deaf abuse scandals come to light, the RID's Educational Interpreting Vote, See What I'm Saying, and other news tidbits.

Yesterday, the RID Committee Chairperson for the Educational Interpreting Task Force, Susan Brown, finally replied to my concerns (originally outlined in ASL here and in English here). I'd been waiting for several days, so I was glad to hear from her - but she asked me to wait until, er, AFTER the vote to clarify the answers to my questions. (SMALL CORRECTION: After the vote is completed - the vote is online and will complete on April 12th, 2010.)

Video of this blog here.

Are we going to witness another Milan?

On April 12th the RID will vote on standardizing rules for educational interpreters. This means any Deaf or hard of hearing person who uses an interpreter in a school environment will have new rules to contend with. They're writing a "Standard Practice Paper" which you can read here. This will affect what the education of Deaf kids looks like in the 21st century-and soon, nearly all Deaf and hard of hearing kids. More and more deaf and hard of hearing kids are being mainstreamed. More and more Deaf schools are failing. And in many places, Deaf adults are struggling to find a place in the mainstream classroom.

Here's some points of confusion and concern:

Welcome back from spring break! The News Roundup tries to collect major Deaf news stories, show the connections between events, and provide a slightly Deaf perspective on modern news. In this issue: the iPad; molestation charges include more and more groups; upcoming vote affects deaf education.

The Apple iPad was released this past weekend; see our in-depth review elsewhere on Signcasts. What does this new product mean for the Deaf community? Is it accessible? And can it be possible that a device might be important even sans webcam? Of note: deafmac.org also took a look at the device.