LYNN — Lynn English High School is set to become the first school in Lynn to offer American Sign Language (ASL) as an elective course.
After a three-year effort led by Lynn Public Schools (LPS) Assistant Director of World Languages Cara Zubriki, World Language Department Head at Lynn English Mike Haddad, and Special Education teacher Heather Lang, the course is finally set to be implemented this fall.
“Interest in learning American Sign Language (ASL) has grown dramatically over the past few years,” said Lang, who will be teaching the course as a certified ASL teacher. “Lynn Public Schools is no exception.”
On March 2, Zubriki showcased a presentation to the School Committee that was put together by Lang and others pushing for the class. It was decided that Lynn English will pilot the course. If the program succeeds, ASL will become available at Lynn Classical and Lynn Tech the following school year.
LPS is set to become the second-largest district in the state to offer ASL curriculum, after Worcester, and will be the largest in the area.
Lang said that Lynn English was chosen to pilot the program because the school already has an established ASL club that has seen a tremendous growth in interest. When Lang joined Lynn English in 2020, she inquired about starting an ASL club after she began teaching the language to staff members who were interested via Zoom during the pandemic. In turn, many students then became interested in learning and thus, a club was formed.
“We had like 30 kids show up the first day,” said Lang. “It was really great and then we had really steady interest that first year.”
That interest has continued to grow steadily. According to Lang, she will likely be able to fill her schedule due to the high number of students who have already signed up. Haddad, who is in his first year as the world language department head, said that so much interest was garnered that they might be forced to restrict the course to only juniors and seniors for the pilot stage.
“Just between the juniors and seniors for scheduling of classes, we had, at this time, over 120 requests for taking ASL next year,” he said. “We intended to open it up to all grades, but it may have to right now be something that’s just for juniors and seniors.”
During the 2021-22 academic year, LPS had roughly 70 students who were deaf or hard of hearing, according to LPS teacher of the Deaf Diane LaPierre. This means that the class is drawing interest from a wide range of students, not just those in the Deaf community.
As a child of a deaf adult (CODA), Lang’s first language is ASL. She is excited to teach all her students, deaf and hearing, about the language, its culture, and the many perks it comes with.
“It’s my first language and I love getting to teach this language for everybody,” she said. “It’s got so many different benefits to everybody.”
Like Lang, the addition of the course means a lot to Haddad on a personal level. When his daughter was born, she lost her hearing. Both Haddad and his wife learned ASL through the Beverly School for the Deaf during the first year of her life.
“Sign language has definitely been something more important to me because I’ve had this very personal connection with it,” he said. “Part of why I am very dedicated to this program is because I want many of our students that have any kind of hearing impairment to feel a part of our community as any other student. Seeing their language represented in our school is a big step forward in that.”
Though he is keeping his eyes set on the present, Haddad is optimistic that the course will take off, and ASL will expand to an entire curriculum.
“The ultimate hope is that this pilot year goes exceedingly well and we end up having ASL as a full-time language with minimum five classes per semester,” he said.
