Well, I contacted the AZ dept of Education certification specialist. The reply I got was interesting and I wonder what others might think of this. I'm going to withhold her name on this thread for now, but here's what she wrote:
"If the students' primary disability (i.e., the disability that impacts them the most) is Hearing Impairment, the teacher is appropriately certified with the Hearing Impairment certificate. The teacher would not need an LD certificate unless the students' primary disability is SLD."
I replied back with this question:
"So, if I diagnose a Deaf student with SLD being the primary disability, does this mean we need to elicit the services of a certified Cross-Category or Specialized Special Education teacher to provide resource support and/or consultation with the existing HI teacher (FYI, all teachers are this school are HI certified) for this student?"
And she responded with this answer:
"A special education teacher with a Hearing Impaired can teach students with disabilities other than Hearing Impairment, as long as the majority of his/her students have the primary disability designation of Hearing Impairment. If the majority of the students have a primary disability designation of SLD, the teacher should either hold a Cross-Categorical or LD certificate.
I spoke to a professor in the Deaf Education department at U of A. She felt that it would be a good idea to have a LD or Cross-Categorical teacher consulted regarding this student. She also expressed concerns that an HI certified teacher may not have had coursework in learning disabilities. However, I believe the school would be in compliance with Certification rules as long as the majority of his/her students have a primary disability designation of Hearing Impairment."
Finally, I responded with this question:
"According to this guideline you provided, we would be in compliance at our school since each of our teachers would have more HI students than MD (HI/SLD) student in their classrooms.
Unfortunately, it doesn't help my cause, however. At our school, we do not have a teacher certified to work with SLD students. And, yes, the UA professor is right in that the typical HI teacher may not have the training to work with LD students.
My frustration is that I have been diagnosing HI students with an additional SLD disability and when the parents ask how services would be delivered at out school, I could only tell them what I wrote in my report recommendations. I could not tell them that their child would be serviced by a specialist trained in learning disabilities because we do not have any! Because of time constraints, I am not always able to work side by side with HI teachers for each SLD student to show them how to apply specific techniques that would help their SLD student. I also do not have the benefit of having feedback from an SLD specialist regarding the interventions she/he attempted based on my assessment findings and whether those test findings are validated (or not validated) by the results.
I'm not sure how ethical it is for our school to receive more special education funding for a SLD/HI (i.e. Multiple Disability) child when we do not actually do anything different than we would for a HI child. It's quite a dilemma for me to be in!"
Maybe I should stop diagnosing HI with the additional SLD label until my school finally gets a teacher certified to work with SLD students? What do you think?
