After rocky bilingual program rollout, LAUSD adds sign language to board meetings

The Los Angeles Unified School District has added American Sign Language interpretation to its Board of Education meetings.

The seven board members’ decisions shape the schooling of a half million students and 74,000 employees. And board meetings are a key source of information about how the country’s second largest school district spends billions of taxpayer dollars.

“By incorporating ASL into board meetings, we not only embrace inclusivity and accessibility for our deaf and hard of hearing stakeholders, but also foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of linguistic diversity,” wrote an LAUSD spokesperson in response to LAist’s questions about the new interpretation service.

There are about 1,800 deaf and hard-of-hearing students attending and 53 sign language interpreters working in the district.

“As a Deaf human, we have to do a lot of work to make sure that we have access to the accommodation that we need so we can participate equally,” said Amy Bogartz, who is also an educator for Deaf students.

She said the process to request an interpreter can take several days, where a hearing attendee can show up in person or tune into the meeting online and understand the content shared in spoken English with no additional effort. LAUSD also streams the board meetings live in Spanish and provides in-person interpretation.

“When a community member who is also Deaf shows up whenever they want to and there's full access — that's pretty close to equitable and it's pretty amazing,” Bogartz said.

Bogartz was part of a group that advocated for a 2022 resolution that expanded bilingual education for Deaf students. For example, the policy made an existing program in American Sign Language and English the default option for Deaf babies enrolled in the district’s infant program with parental consent.

Supporters of the policy said the change helps correct more than 100 years of bias against visual language and pointed to the benefits of multilingual learning.

Opponents of the policy pointed to the advancement of assistive technology, including cochlear implants and preferred students focus solely on spoken language skills.

While the district provided few details to reporters who checked in on the program in December 2022, Bogartz said LAUSD’s Deaf programs are increasing their resources to improve access to visual, written, and spoken languages.

“We're still fighting for that access and equity not only in LAUSD, at the board meetings, but [in] all of LAUSD,” Bogartz said.

How to watch LAUSD's board meetings