A Higher Education for Deaf Students : Mainstreaming at Granada Hills Math and Science Magnet School Offers a More Challenging Opportunity for College-Bound

At Granada Hills High School, they’ve broken the sound barrier.

The deaf students mainstreamed into the school’s math and science magnet program say the classes will better prepare them for college.

And, at least for hard-of-hearing sophomore Lisa Scheybel, 15, there’s another social consequence: a boyfriend with hearing.

Lisa is one of 35 deaf students in the Granada Hills/Cal State Northridge Science Math Technology magnet school, part of a nationwide trend in deaf education and the only program in Los Angeles Unified School District that allows deaf students to attend college preparatory classes alongside hearing counterparts.

The 3-year-old magnet program also features math instructor Jeff Dichter, 41, LAUSD’s only deaf teacher--and believed to be one of just a handful in California.

The rigorous magnet school curriculum is a welcome contrast to the traditional all-deaf classes most deaf teenagers previously attended, according to students, parents and administrators.

“There’s more equal opportunity [in the magnet],” said Amrita Nat, 17, a deaf senior, during a break from

her math analysis class. “Here, you learn more about the real world, not just deaf people.”

The district’s deaf teens are generally taught a regular high school-level curriculum in all-deaf classes, although some programs allow many to be mainstreamed with hearing students for one or two periods.

But because other district magnets are not staffed to teach the deaf, disabled students generally have no access to such programs.

At Granada Hills, all magnet, honor and advanced placement classes are available to the deaf.

The program, which serves 405 hearing students and 35 of LAUSD’s 2,300 deaf pupils, has eight interpreters who join the deaf teens in each class to translate into sign language the teachers’ audible explanations.

Note-taking assistance, translating for extracurricular activities and a bus to take students home after evening tutoring sessions are also available to the deaf.

In Dichter’s math classes, the interpreter’s role is reversed.

While the deaf students understand Dichter’s sign language, an interpreter in the back of the classroom audibly translates his instructions for the hearing students.

The math and science magnet program at Granada Hills is a joint effort between the district and nearby Cal State Northridge. The university’s National Center on Deafness helped Granada Hills train staffers, while offering the deaf students access to the center’s resources and programs.

The magnet school is no walk in the park for any student, deaf or hearing.

Among the demanding requirements, students must take four years each of math and science instead of the usual two years required in a high school curriculum.

“The program is hard enough for hearing students,” said Charlene Creeger, a Granada Hills magnet counselor. “Deaf students have to be brighter and work harder.”

The deaf students must juggle looking at the board, watching their interpreter and, in some instances, taking notes, she said.

“In the beginning I would look at the teacher to try to read the lips and taking notes was too hard,” said Alim Chandani, a 17-year-old senior. But “now I’m more used to it and things are more smooth.”

Although the classes are difficult, deaf students say they are good practice for the future.

“[Regular] deaf classes are too easy,” said Gene-Paul Del Rosario, an 18-year-old senior who has been in the program three years. “Here, we’re setting foundations for college.”

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Academics aside, parents say the mainstreaming experience also has social benefits, forcing hearing and deaf students to learn to communicate with each other.

“[Mainstreamed] deaf students have to interact with the other kids,” said Lucy Del Rosario, Gene-Paul’s mother. “You don’t have an interpreter there with you all the time.”

The Granada Hills mainstreaming program is part of a growing phenomenon nationwide toward full incorporation of physically disabled students.

In the last few years, enrollment in all-deaf schools nationwide has decreased while mainstream programs have increased in number and enrollment. For example, in 57 all-deaf high schools tracked between 1985 and 1995 by Gallaudet University, an all-deaf institution in Washington, D.C., enrollment decreased from 18,105 to 15,234. In the same period, high school mainstreaming programs grew from 75 to 208 and increased from 10,134 to 14,374 in enrollment.

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Mainstreaming programs have grown, in part, because of legislation and an increase in educators’ understanding of the needs of the deaf, said Arthur Schildroth, a researcher at Gallaudet.

The first five deaf students who will graduate from the Granada Hills program in June have all applied to or been accepted at Cal State Northridge, where mainstreaming services are similar to those at Granada Hills.

Mainstreaming of deaf teachers could also follow a similar pattern, according to Center on Deafness director Herb Larson.

Two years ago, Dichter said it was culture shock for hearing students when he, using sign language, brought the class to order.

But soon, he said, they got used to the procedure: Dichter’s hands moving in front of the blackboard while an interpreter in the back of the room translated.

“I assured them I was no different than the other teachers,” Dichter said.

Some students insist that Dichter and his class are indeed different--and perhaps even better.

“Not only are you learning math,” said hearing junior Lizbeth Torres, “it’s like you’re also learning a foreign language.”