The Arizona Schools for the Deaf and the Blind board voted Thursday to move the school’s Tucson campus to Oro Valley next school year, a decision that families and staff said would force students—including those with vision impairment—into a different setting and could separate students who are deaf or hard of hearing from those who are blind or visually impaired.
The board’s decision came after a public meeting that lasted into the fifth hour, where the board received 45 minutes of public comment instead of the usual 10 and heard from more than a dozen speakers. At the meeting, two assistants from the Arizona Attorney General’s office sat behind a curtain with microphones, and some attendees and a board member were warned for speaking out of turn, according to a report distributed by The Associated Press.
During the vote, board member Earl Terry abstained from a second decision on staffing cuts. The board voted 5-2 to proceed with the move, with Tucson resident William Koehler casting the two objections. A separate vote to lay off about 70 people passed 5-1, with Terry abstaining.
Koehler, a former school administrator, used American Sign Language to tell the board, “Before I make my vote I would like to offer that this action will gut this agency.” During the meeting, a parent told the board “You should be ashamed,” while another person shouted “I can’t take it anymore” as family members left the auditorium.
ASDB Superintendent Annette Reichman said the board’s actions were driven by what she described as financial and operational pressures, including lack of federal and state funding, declining birth rates leading to lower enrollment, more complicated student needs, and deteriorating buildings and infrastructure. Reichman said the state was not providing money, that the school had imposed a hiring freeze and stopped hiring, and that it had stopped giving pay increases; she said last year the agency did not offer pay increases because it did not have funding to do so.
Supporters of keeping the Tucson campus said the changes would harm students who learn together across disabilities and special needs. ASDB teacher Kerry Hodgkinson told the board, “Please don’t tear it apart,” and said, “Students are not separate,” adding, “They are not separate sitting in a van today — learning together, helping each other.” Hodgkinson also described teaching both vision and hearing-impaired students and said the school community worked together.
ASDB has 114 students currently, with a 56-acre Tucson campus on West Speedway Boulevard built for about 400 students more than 100 years ago. The Tucson campus serves grades K-12, and a separate campus operates in Phoenix. As laid out in the report, layoffs would range from roles including a music teacher to positions such as a physical therapist, custodians and a groundskeeper, with the layoffs set to take effect June 30.
Families previously said they were told in early January that Reichman would sign a five-year lease with Amphitheater Public Schools to move the school to Copper Creek Elementary in Oro Valley, but they later said the lease had not been signed as of Thursday morning. The report said families learned about the move through a Jan. 8 video sent by email that said ASDB faced a projected $3 million deficit and needed to cut costs.
The transition has also faced legal challenges. The report said 15 families filed a lawsuit Monday, alleging the move violates state and federal law by not providing enough input and notice and by moving forward with plans to close programs for blind and visually impaired students while “maintaining or prioritizing programming for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.” On Wednesday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey T. Bergin declined a plea to delay Thursday’s vote, the report said, and lawyer Melissa Rueschhoff said the families will file a new lawsuit and seek a temporary restraining order.
In the lead-up to Thursday’s meeting, ASDB educators and staff attended community meetings after layoffs were announced. At the start of the meeting, dozens of Tucson-based teachers, staff, families and students wore black t-shirts with ASDB in American Sign Language in white letters within an Arizona state outline, and the report said the crowd of about 300 had dwindled to about 100 by the time the vote came in.