A jury sided with a former teacher at the Kentucky School for the Deaf in a whistleblower lawsuit this week. Jurors decided the teacher, Deanna Glasser, was fired in retaliation for speaking out against discrimination at the school in 2019.
In her lawsuit, filed in 2019, Glasser said that during her time at KSD she spoke up about numerous problems at the school, including a lack of staff fluent in American Sign Language and failures to follow through on students’ Individualized Education Plans, as required by federal law.
“I hope that this verdict … sends a message to the [Kentucky Department of Education] … because they saw that the needs were not getting met,” Glasser told LPM News.
The KSD is a residential school in Danville for students in grades K-12 who are deaf or hard of hearing. Most students spend the week living on campus and return to their families on weekends.
Glasser alleged that over a period of two years, she reported several issues to leaders in the Kentucky Department of Education, which oversees the school. One of those problems, Glasser said in her lawsuit, was that too few adults were proficient in ASL, “which led to delay in students’ communications about student safety concerns and students’ social-emotional needs.”
Glasser also said principal Toyah Robey, who was not fluent in ASL, held meetings with deaf students and staff about behavioral issues and job duties without interpretation — a violation of federal laws protecting people with...
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