SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) -Two million dollars. That's how much funding Utah's Schools for the Deaf and Blind have lost in the past three years. Legislative budget cuts have led to the loss of programs, and more than 100 teachers, faculty and support staff.
Alex Butterfield's son Zeke was born deaf. He’s now three, has cochlear implants, and is learning to adapt to a world full of sound. "He has been learning to listen. That's part of the Listening, Spoken Language program, he has been learning to listen and speak." Those lessons are happening daily at the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind pre-school in Millcreek.
Zeke and his peers are learning to adapt to their disabilities. They are also learning typical pre-school lessons of ABC’s and number recognition. But the numbers coming from the Utah lawmakers aren’t adding up for the schools that serve more than 2,000 students statewide. Steve Noyce, the superintendant for Utah’s Schools for the Deaf and Blind says the legislature has made cuts to education across the board in the past few years, but he says theirs have been deeply felt. "The schools for the deaf and blind are not the only ones but certainly we have been cut dramatically."
Noyce says programs were cut to compensate, including help for parents learning sign language to communicate with their children, and life skills for the visually impaired. "We have asked teachers to volunteer to teach on the weekends, we have to have bake sales to fund the actual programs that we are trying to provide." He says it's not just the programs in the classroom that have been affected. "It's also the support they need from audiology, orientation ability, psychology, physical therapy, occupational therapy. It just goes on and on."
But, in a tough economy funding does not. Years of budget cuts and a growing student population is leading to a crisis administrators and parents hope lawmakers will not ignore.
Ryan Balls has a four year old daughter in the program. He hopes the head start from USDB will allow her to enter their neighborhood Kindergarten on an even playing field next year. "They need this kind of help, and we can see a difference in our daughter from the time she started school just immediately after a few weeks." When asked what he wants lawmakers to do in the next session Ryan says “call me before making any more cuts.”
There are more than two thousand students in Utah's Schools for the Deaf and Blind. Most of those receive help within their own neighborhood schools from specially certified teachers in their area. A foundation was recently created to seek private support to help the schools carry on.
To find out more about the foundation, and Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind visit:
www.usdb.org 
