In the fall of 2017, the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE), with a few discretionary dollars lying around, funded a 17-page study of findings and recommendations for the Louisiana School for the Deaf (LSD), the Louisiana School for the Vision Impaired (LSVI), and the Louisiana Special Education Center (LSEC), all of which are under the umbrella of the Special School District (SSD). The report by the Education Development Center was submitted on Marcy 5, 2018.
Today, 4½ years later, that report is gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, few of its proposals ever implemented. Morale, meanwhile, particularly at LSD, is at an all-time low as the school finds itself in a state of turmoil, and uncertainty.
Worst of all, no one at DOE seems to really care about anything but establishing some sort of political fiefdom at SSD and members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) are either oblivious to conditions or derelict in carrying out their duties. And if a sit-down with one BESE member is any indication, then dereliction may well be the applicable term.
DOE appears hell-bent on ridding itself of qualified personnel while replacing them with appointees with little or no credentials in educating hard-of-hearing or vision-impaired students – even to the point of installing LSD administrators with zero experience in sign language skills.
At the same time, LouisianaVoice has learned that a former DOE official was hired in 2014 after the department advertised her position only in a Washington, D.C. publication at the time she was residing in Washington. The position was not advertised in say, Baton Rouge, where the job was, and it just happened that at the time, she was preparing to move to Louisiana so that her husband could work in the gubernatorial campaign of then-US Sen. David Vitter. Sometimes the dots are so easy to connect that it’s almost laughable. Almost.
Moreover, that individual, State Special Education Director Jamie Wong, launched her own consulting company, SPED Strategies, and has obtained consulting contracts with several parish school systems without having to go through a bid process because she provided affidavits that falsely claimed that her company was a “sole source” provider of services she offered (more on that tomorrow).
Meanwhile, the purge of personnel qualified to work with deaf and hard-of-hearing students is in full swing and no one seems to fully comprehend why.
On July 25, Dr. Ernest Garrett, III, superintendent of Louisiana’s Special School District which oversees LSD, LSVI, AND LSEC, was fired by the SSD board from the position he had held for nearly three years.
Then, in quick succession, LSD Director Dr. Heather Laine and Gloria M. Ramos, one of only three speech-language pathologists who is fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) in Louisiana, were terminated. Actually, Ramos resigned as it appeared she was about to be shown the door. She has since been banned from the campus because on her way out, she paused with some of her students to say goodbye.
The reasons given for discipline and/or dismissal of all three were pretty much cookie-cutter justifications with no real specifics provided other than insubordination for Ramos’s expressed concern about taking on an excessive number of student cases which she feared would leave her exposed to legal liability, a position ridiculed by Garrett’s successor, acting superintendent Katherine Granier. For Garrett, the reason given was “payroll discrepancies and attendance issues,” again vague justifications which will, in all probability, invite legal action on Garrett’s part.
Jay Isch, executive director of Deaf Focus, said of Garrett’s termination, “He was absolutely sabotaged.”
“All these problems with the administration go to show how critical competent leadership at deaf schools is,” Isch continued. “These people do not understand. They continue to ignorantly and maybe inadvertently discriminate against deaf or hard of hearing members of the faculty. They do not understand how deaf schools should operate. Deaf schools also carry a lot of weight in being a beacon for deaf communities across the country. The school has a moral obligation to employ deaf and hard-of-hearing professionals to work with [these] children and sustain the economy of the ‘deaf ecosystem’ to ensure employment opportunities are there [them] rather than filling the campus with incompetent people who do not understand deaf education.”
Garrett, who is deaf and who possesses extensive experience in working with deaf students and who is proficient in signing, was replaced by Katherine Granier, who has no background in teaching deaf students and who is unable to communicate in ASL.
Granier has been rejecting new students because of staff shortages and then cutting staff positions based on the low number of enrolled students, one person with knowledge of the school told LouisianaVoice – even as available grand funds from the state have gone unutilized to fill the gaps.
“Grievances from multiple employees have been filed. Former employees have shared their experience at the district as recently as a few weeks ago, and it is horrendous,” Isch said. “The blatant discrimination against Deaf professionals and the abuse of power are appalling and I feel that the Louisiana Commission for the Deaf needs to step in to call out the administration for their inexpertise (sic), incompetency, and pettiness. We need to support the newly-appointed SSD Board in their navigation towards being knowledgeable and aware. As the Board of the district, they play a critical role in ensuring that the Louisiana School for the Deaf receives the support they need and the appropriate guidance from competent administrators to do so.
“We feel the administration is taking advantage of the fact that the SSD Board is new and not aware. As an advocate, I have been personally involved in advocating for competent leadership at LSD for over 5 years, and we are going back to square one. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the assessment of the district, and the search/hiring of competent leadership. Now, they’re tearing all of that progress apart, taking us back to where we started. The administration is hiring incompetent people with no qualifying background, hiring people before the application period even concludes, and allowing them to run the school into the ground.”
Louisiana Voice 
“hiring incompetent people with no qualifying background” seems to be a familiar refrain in state government these days….
Great article Tom. Thank you for seeing to those our corrupt weaponized government chooses to ignore and use for their own personal gain.
I have been fighting the same battle for our seniors, who were the only ones not awash in Covid Cash. I deliver Meals on Wheels and when my elderly neighbors returned from their hospital stay for Covid, I called the Council on Aging to get them on their short program intended to help transition seniors who are recovering from an illness with hot meals.
I was shocked to find out there was still a 6 month to a year wait for the program from pre-Covid. I grabbed my mail on the way to my computer and there was an expensive mailer promoting the Million dollar lottery for adults and a Million dollar scholarship for minors for taking the jab. The first article to come up in my search was bragging about Covid money being used to pay off student loans at UL. My head was exploding.
I contacted the Cajun Council on Aging who told me they had received only a small amount to divide between 6 or 8 parishes (It’s been over a year so can’t remember the amount). It wasn’t enough to make a dent, let alone expand Meals on Wheels for the most vulnerable.
I emailed and got on the phone with my politicians explaining that we are changing out hinges on old ice chests and our hot meal containers are falling apart. For some reason the only Americans left out of the Covid windfall are those who needed it the most.
In socialist countries an age cost/risk ratio is used to determine if grandma deserves that hip replacement. It isn’t in dispute that there were numerous nursing homes in large cities where they purposefully placed Covid positive seniors back into the general population. Curious that the families of those murdered seniors can’t get investigations. But oh! The minute the NY governor is accused of being inappropriate with women, he must resign. Killing his senior constituents isn’t as important as “sexism”. No relief for thousands of families still!
The Louisiana Elites from both parties are working together against us and this was confirmed when I watched a hearing on election machines months ago. I watched countless citizens from the professional in a suit to a woman with purple hair who call herself Purple Haze I think it was. To a person, they all asked for paper ballots. Then came the Clerk of Courts who claimed hand counting paper ballots was impossible. It’s possible in Canada and France. They have the count the same day and use the video of the hand counts for audits if they need them.
Of course I dug in because I was uncomfortable with what my Republican Clerk of Court told me on the phone. They think we work for them and not the other way around. I am finding some of the same shenanigans you found when you were digging into the issue with our deaf school. I traced everything back to our weaponized federal government who gives out grants to control state and local municipalities. I recognized the UN program immediately.
Yes, they do tend to open their own “start ups” that deal in whatever they are entrenched in politically. You should see the start ups that deal in our Louisiana Secretary of State’s business to include elections. They all have government (mainly federal) experience and brag about it on their “About” pages. They all end up being unbelievably successful. I just checked out legalvotela.gov and it looks like they are onto these thieves as well.
Did you see where Latoya Cantrell is petitioning to end the Federal Consent Decree over the Police in New Orleans because she says “It handcuffs our officers by making their jobs harder, pestering them with punitive punishment, and burying them with paperwork.” It is interesting to find out that most, if not all, of these high crime cities have been under operational control of the Feds for years. Hmmm…
I don’t think there are two parties anymore except for those who aren’t keeping up. The Elites in government work together against We the Broke People they are gutting for their King/Surf program. I didn’t see this until I left my former party of tolerance to become an Independent where I enjoy equal opportunity disgust for all deserving politicians. I did some deep diving for 5 years and now understand that this is a fight between the Elites trying to own us and we Everyday Americans not willing to be owned. We must work together against this tyranny.
Independent Fed Up Voter,
Cindy Hayes
Excellent and important article!