06/11/24: We have filed our amended complaint with the Office of Civil Rights. We thank everyone for their patience, and for providing feedback to us since we initially filed the complaint in December 2023. In collaboration with National ACLU, we have made many changes to reflect the community concerns that were raised, and have more narrowly refined the concerns that we continue to have regarding deaf and hard-of-hearing students' access to education.
02/22/24: In response to the feedback and conversations we had following our initial filing, we are amending our OCR complaint. We would like to apologize to the deaf and hard of hearing community for the harm of the original complaint. We also want to thank those who are helping us improve our advocacy for deaf and hard of hearing children in Delaware with the upcoming amendment, including community members, educators, advocates, and the ACLU's Disability Rights Program.
Our full response and update can be found here:
READ OUR FAQ & FVC
01/02/24: Thank you for your patience. We're invested in learning more from this community as we review both our actions and our impact regarding the OCR complaint. We will be reaching out to individual community members to discuss the concerns that were shared. While we cannot connect with every single person who reached out, please be aware of potential communication from us as we begin scheduling these conversations. Thank you again to those who have taken the time to educate, offer resources, and advocate for the community.
We will be following up with more detailed information. An important point we wanted to clarify is that we understand the importance of ASL to deaf and hard of hearing children and Deaf culture. We support sign language acquisition for deaf and hard of hearing children, and we would oppose any efforts to limit access to ASL in Delaware. We will be working closely with community members to make sure that our work does not in any way impede children's ASL education.
12/27/23: Following news of our recent OCR filing, we received a lot of community feedback, and we're reviewing it. All of it. A sincere thank you for the to those who shared concerns and perspectives. Our offices are closed until Jan 2, but we will be following up on the concerns once our staff returns to work.
