Hand over fist

A Dallas ISD police officer at J. L. Long Middle School learned sign language so she could better serve Long’s 50 deaf students

Story by Brittany Nunn | Photos by Rasy Ran

It was Kimberly Stangarone’s first week on the job.

A Woodrow Wilson High School graduate, she had just finished school at Eastfield College and started her job as a police officer at J. L. Long Middle School. Now she was chasing a student who was blatantly ignoring her instructions.

“Hey, you can’t go that way!” she yelled, but he just kept walking.

Finally she caught up with him and caught his attention.

He looked at her wide-eyed, and her frustration immediately dissipated. As the student signaled his hearing, Stangarone realized he was one of the 50 students in Long’s deaf education program.

Embarrassed, Stangarone attempted to convey her apologies and let the student continue on his way.

It was her first run-in with a deaf student at Long, but it wasn’t her last.

Long is one of nine campuses within Dallas ISD’s Regional School for the Deaf, along with Stonewall Jackson Elementary, where the program originated. It serves 620 hearing-impaired students from across North Texas, most of whom attend class with hearing children, following the same curriculum and classroom structure as the general student body with accommodations such as an interpreter or a deaf education teacher.

The encounter made Stangarone think: What if a student faced an emer- gency and wasn’t able to communicate it to her? They’d have to wait for an interpreter, killing what could potentially be precious time.

That thought didn’t sit well with Stangarone.

Then her fears were realized — a situation arose where two students needed her help, but they had to wait for someone who could translate their need.

“It hurt me because they were waiting and waiting, and I think they felt like, ‘Oh we’re not important,’” she explains.

“They wanted to get the situation handled, and so I tried to write things out, but with ASL (American Sign Language),