VALDOSTA STATE MAGAZINE 55 Bridging the Communication Gap WRITTEN BY JESSICA R. POPE The Council on Education of the Deaf reports that the United States is experiencing a national crisis in deaf education — a significant shortage of qualified teachers exacerbated by current retirement rates and reduced numbers of specialized teacher training programs, which means fewer deaf education graduates. Enrollment of D/deaf and hard-of-hearing students, however, has remained steady, resulting in increasing student to teacher ratios. According to the Council on Education of the Deaf, this ratio was at its lowest of 30:1 in 1976. If current trends continue, council leaders predict the ratio could climb as high as 144:1 this year. The “data suggests that many D/deaf and hard-of-hearing students are unserved or underserved …,” shared Dr. Pamela Luft, president of the Center on Education of the Deaf, in a letter to the nation’s remaining deaf education teacher preparation programs, including Valdosta State University. The United States Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services “requires that D/deaf and hard-of-hearing students have programming that addresses their unique language and communication needs, which can only be provided by well-prepared teachers….” Victoria Johnson graduated from Valdosta State University with a Master of Education in special education, emphasis in deaf and hard of hearing, in May. “I love American Sign Language (ASL) and any opportunity I have to teach in this language,” she said. Johnson completed her degree online through a special partnership between VSU and the Kansas School for the Deaf. A Memorandum of Understanding was first signed in 2014. “It was always in the back of my mind that someday I would either become an ASL interpreter or become a teacher for the D/deaf and hard of hearing. As an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa, Johnson joined the ASL Club and chose ASL as her foreign language. She graduated VSU WORKS TO PUT MORE DEAF EDUCATION TEACHERS IN KANSAS CLASSROOMS