department of education meeting about Pineview Elementary and the
Wyoming School for the Deaf buildings being torn down. This is not the
state's doing, but rather, Natrona County School District's. It is the
school district that wants to demolish the buildings, and build a new
elementary school to replace the old Pineview. The State of Wyoming owns
the school for the deaf building, but the district owns the land on
which the building is. And since Pineview is so old, they want to
replace it with a new and upgraded building. So now, where is the
library and resource center going to move to? No one knows yet. All I
can say is, I'm not happy the deaf school is going to be demolished. But
what can we do, really?
It is thanks to that deaf school that I am where I am. If it hadn't been
for that school and for the staff that worked there, I wouldn't be who I
am today. The deaf school has been the best thing that's ever happened
to me. It was where I started talking again with my voice, and learning
sign language and all. They improved my speech, taught me how to
socialize with others, how to care for my hearing aids the properly way
and of how to be a self advocate. It was also the teachers at the deaf
school who really made sure I understood English, and of how to use
proper language and grammer skills. Most deaf people's English skills
are not as well developed, but of course it varies from person to
person. I was the only one in that group of same-grade deaf students who
was able to do school work at the normal grade level, instead of being
behind. I even did advanced math in 6th grade, and got started on 6th
grade English while I was still finishing the 5th grade year. The
teachers have really worked hard with me. Yes, they worked just as hard
with the other students. Perhaps I just did better because I had heard
language the first couple of years of my life before going deaf, and
that worked to my advantage. I don't know.
I will definitely be sad when the building is torn down for good. But it
is nice to know the school district is willing to place a memorial of
some sort, like a bench or a plaque, as evidence that a school for the
deaf did exist in that location.
I better get going on that website, huh. Yeah. I very slowly started to
work on a website for the Wyoming School for the Deaf in June. An
archives website, with a news archive of news articles of the school, a
photo gallery, a comments area for people to share comments or memories,
etc. Just only this month I figured out how to work the gallery, but I
can't even access it right now as there are new owners for the website
host (5gbfree.com) and there's a lot of issues. Hopefully those issues
will be resolved soon or I'll have to find another host. But I do
definitely need to get going with the site. There are tons of old
articles I need to type up (the more recent ones, I'll just use the Star
Tribune site links, I have gotten permission from the editor to use the
articles for the site, and we agreed the more recent ones I'll just link
to, while the more older ones I'll post myself).
Wow, 11:03. I should get some sleep, afterall it is WYHI day tomorrow.
Wow, hard to believe WYHI has bee going on for 25 years.. Wow.
--Meghan
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