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.

Ms. Moose, I was unfortunately disappointed with the Educational Interpreting Standard Practice paper. Although people claim it's a set of observations, it reads like a job description, and the job description is a new one to me. It does some things right by codifying the role of an interpreter in schools, which is surely different than elsewhere. It does a lot of things wrong in guiding the interpreter in building the relationship between the teacher and the student. It also seems to turn the interpreter into a gateway or funnel through which a deaf student gets all their education. This is a situation which already happens in many places today, and the experience isn't pleasant for the student or the interpreter. I have gone into my concerns online in an article on Signcasts.com. My editor shares my concern.

Ms. Moose, since March 23rd I've been trying to explain my perspective to the Chairperson of the K-12 Educational Interpreting Task Force, Susan Brown. She was dismissive of my concerns, so I explained them further in a long e-mail. She has since put off replying to me until after the vote. Since then I have been writing and signing about this issue online.

Ms. Moose, I would like to ask that this vote be postponed until more discussion and more involvement on the national level has been done. This document is clearly unsatisfactory both for many interpreters and for many Deaf and hard of hearing people who use interpreters. We need a more nuanced document to guide schools in raising truly developed children. I will be posting a copy of this request online, to show that there is continuing dialogue on this issue. Interpreters have always been allies of Deaf people in the classroom and I know they will continue to be so in the future.

Thank you for your time and consideration,