Northwest Association of Deaf Basketball (NWADB)
Andrea Anderson
In the 25th’s Northwest Association of Deaf Basketball (NWADB) Women’s Tournament, Utah was able to send 2 women teams, Mountaineers and Nighthawks to Sacramento, California. In that tournament, there were 4 women teams, both Utah’s teams performed well, with the Nighthawks winning the 3rd place title and the Mountaineers as the regional Champions!
Both teams earned many tournament awards: Shari Bailey as the Most Valuable Player, winning the tournament records of most points, most rebounds and most blocks. Shabby Razmpour won the Best Defense award, Nicole Gough got the tournament record of most assists.
For the 1st All Star awards, Andrea Anderson from the Mountaineers, Kristi Mortensen and Aubree Thompson from the Nighthawks earned their spots on this first team of All –Stars. Justin Walker, coach for NightHawks won the coach of the tournament.
There were a total of 6 games and the game scores are:
Game 1: UT NightHawks 38 – VAD Red 35
Game 2: UT Mountaineers 57 – NorCal 34
Game 3: UT Mountaineers 66 – VAD Red 17
Game 4: UT NightHawks 26 – NorCal 37
Game 5: NorCal 43 – VAD Red 22
Game 6: UT Mountaineers fortified against UT NightHawks due to injuries.
Championship Game: NorCal 14 – UT Mountaineers 35 (NorCal fortified during halftime)
Mountaineers and Nighthawks are in deep gratitude for UAD’s sponsorship and we will represent the teams again on the national stage of USADB, United States of America Deaf Basketball’s tournament in Oakland, California on April 9th-11th, 2015.
President’s Corner
The UAD yard sale on March 28 was so successful, $1,700 was raised. We thank the community who donated clothes, furniture and household items. We had a great teamwork organizing and setting up the sale area.
We are partnering with the Sanderson Community Center to host legislative training for the first time. It will be on Saturday, November 14th from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Please check the flyer on page 8 for more information. It is FREE. It will be huge benefit for you to learn how to build relationships with important people in your area. Don’t miss it out on it. Lunch will be provided.
To view the video on this event, follow this link: http://bit.ly/1xdnh5o. It is inspiring story of Joseph, Zach and Ben Featherstone.
The 2015 UAD biennial conference will be held in Provo October 16 and 17. Do save the date! Informational announcements will be posted through UAD Announce and UAD Bulletin. Do join us! UAD and UTRID are partnering for this conference. We have posted ticket prices in advance for the conference. We offer different plans such as early bird and seniors/students. Check it out on the UAD website.
We strongly encourage you to join UAD as a member and support UAD; membership strengthens the organization. UAD needs your voice and your opinion to help move it forward in the future. Membership is only $15 a year and is tax deductible. To join, go to uad.org and click on ‘Join Us.’
Donations to UAD are always appreciated. To donate, contact Adele Sigoda at fab622@comcast.net.
Thank you,
Philippe Montalette,
President
pmontalette@me.com
A First: Deaf Ladies’ Expo
Valerie Kinney
On the first day of spring, March 21, Sego Lily Center for the Abused Deaf hosted the first Deaf Ladies’ Expo. Meme Kerr coordinated the event and scheduled demonstrations, classes and vendors at the Sanderson Community Center.
On tap were demonstrations of Zumba, self-defense, and personal training. Attendees joined in along with the demonstrations onstage. Classes included holiday banners, gardening, arm knitting, and raising chickens.
Easily over 100 attended. There were 15 vendors/exhibitors demonstrating oils, offering photo service, service information. Pizza and goodies were also sold for those hungry souls.
April 2015 Holidays
1 April Fool’s Day
3 Good Friday Day
5 Easter Sunday
22 Earth Day
23 Take Your Daughter to Work Day
24 Arbor Day
USDB Update
Michelle Tanner
During the month of March the USDB legislative requests were all funded to varying degrees. The request to fund pay increases for our teachers was supported in full. Our request of $490,000 to fund 6.5 new teaching positions was not funded entirely. The final designated amount was limited to $300,000; which means USDB will have funding to support only 4 new positions. Both of the funding requests for USIMAC, (Utah State Instructional Materials Access Center) were funded in their entirety. This included embossers and personnel to keep up with the demand on this center. Additionally the request for a modular unit to accommodate growth in the Alpine area was awarded. With the new teaching position and this new modular unit USDB will now be able to provide an ASL/English preschool classroom environment in the Orem/Provo area.
Finally, the legislature voted to fund the building of a new facility in the Salt Lake area; located on the back of the JMS campus. This new building will hold the three blind preschool classes and one deaf blind classroom and four listening and spoken language preschool classes in the Salt Lake City area. Once these classrooms are in place, JMS will have the entire JMS building to itself.
This new facility will also include office space for administration, related service providers, itinerant teachers and parent-infant advisors. There are several meeting rooms and a full size gym to accommodate various events. The gym, in particular, has been designed to accommodate deaf basketball games. There will be score boards on both ends of the gym, lights around the backboard to alert the players when a “whistle is blown,” and flashing lights to get the attention of those in attendance. There is also a large performance stage for the theatrical productions provided by the drama department. This also includes two large displays for the many presentations we anticipate will be held there. Ground breaking should begin in within the next few months and the building is tentatively scheduled to be finished by July 17, 2016. This would mean the building should be ready for occupancy in August of 2016. It should be a fun to watch as this new facility takes shape over the next year.
This is also the time of year when all schools begin recruiting for all kinds of teaching positions. This year USDB has several open positions in various parts of the state. We have openings for teaching positions in Ogden, Salt Lake, and the Orem/Provo area. In total, there are 9 open teaching positions. Most are ASL/English teaching positions. There is one open LSL teaching position in the Ogden area and one itinerant position for the southern part of the state. If you are aware of anyone who is a Teacher of the Deaf, please encourage them to apply at USDB. The pay is better than expected for Utah and the benefits are great. We are looking for individuals that want to take pride in their work and contribute to the students we love so much. If you or someone you know is interested in applying for any of these positions, please send a resume and letter of interest to Carol DeRosier at carold@usdb.org We would appreciate your help in getting the word out and informing people that we are interviewing now for positions in the fall.
Deaf PIP Update
Paula Pittman
We are excited to announce that we are now fully staffed! We have been fortunate to hire four new Deaf Mentors, so we now have enough Deaf Mentors to serve all of the families who have requested services. In the summer we will be losing one of our Parent Advisors, Janis Dyer, who serves the Southeastern part of the state. Janis will be retiring after working for USDB for 24 years. Janis is our #1 PIP Road Warrior. I would venture to guess that she has driven more miles across some of the most desolate terrain in Utah than any other USDB employee in the history of the school! Since the start of this 2014-2015 school year she has driven over 28,000 miles. That’s over 6,000 miles a month! We are so sad to see her leave, and I don’t know if we will ever find anyone with her credentials who is willing to cover from Moab to Monument Valley. She has kindly offered to continue working through the summer for PIP until we can find someone who is willing to step into the void that she will be leaving. The rest of our staff will be returning, and we are excited as we move into the events of this spring.
We are busily preparing for our Spring Retreat, which will be held on April 16-17 at Snowbird. Our team has never had the opportunity to have a retreat, but we felt this year it would be a perfect time since we have a total of 9 new staff members who have joined us in this past year. Since we are a team that is spread all over the state, we rarely have the opportunity to do teambuilding activities. We will take this upcoming opportunity to get to know one another and to build partnerships with one another so we can better serve the children and their families. We will also be planning a Deaf Mentor Training Workshop to train all of our new Deaf Mentors. We hope to accomplish that by the end of April as well.
Our biggest event of the year, our PIP Family Camp, will take place on June 5-6. On Friday evening we will be hosting families at the Sanderson Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, then on Saturday we will have workshops for parents at fun activities for the kids at the USDB Ogden campus. Our theme this year is “Life is a Circus: Let’s Play!” Parent workshops will focus on the value of play and will provide play strategies that can build language skills in children. The kids, of course, will be practicing their play skills all day long, and our PIP staff will be joining them! We are looking for volunteers to help us out on Saturday, June 6 in Ogden. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact our administrative assistant, Michelle Green, at michelleg@usdb.org and she can get you set up as a USDB volunteer. I promise you will have a great time! You will be worn out at the end of the day, but you will have a great time.
Thank you so much for your support of PIP!
Jean Massieu School News
Aimee Breinholt
We have just finished the third quarter and are looking forward to the last quarter of the year. Much has happened over the last couple of weeks. We are thrilled to report that our drama team did an outstanding job at regional competitions. They tied for 1st place in Sweepstakes. They also took 2nd place in Humorous and Dramatic Monologues, Pantomime, Contemporary Scenes, Musical Theatre and One Acts. Several students will move on to the state competition which will be held April 10th and 11th. We are proud of our students and grateful to Sarah Leathers for her outstanding work with the drama program.
Our Academic Bowl team just competed in the regional competition hosted in New Mexico. They enjoyed the camaraderie and experience. We are pleased to announce they received the sportsmanship award (2nd). We would like to recognize not only the students for their hard work but also the coaches, Jasmine Taylor and Kristi Mortenson for everything they have done.
Our 7th and 8th grade boys have started playing Junior Jazz basketball. They are off to a good start. They have won one and lost one. Their games are held at the Taylorsville Recreation Center on Saturdays. The boys would love to have you cheer them on if you have the chance.
Our pilot reading clinic is under way. We are excited with the strong interest in the program. The pilot program will continue through the rest of the school year. We are hoping to grow the program in the future. We are looking for volunteers. If this is something you would be interested in helping us with please contact Trish Vierra, our reading specialist.
We have a couple of upcoming events and would love to invite you to join us. The annual Stingers (staff vs. students) Basketball game will be April 24th from 6-8pm at the deaf center. Come help raise money for our student body government and cheer your team to victory. Go STAFF! 🙂 Stephanie Mathis will be teaching a dance class that will culminate with a performance by the students on May 25th at JMS.
It is the time of year that we start projecting our needs for the coming school year. We are looking to fill 4 teaching positions at JMS (preschool, elementary-resource, secondary-English and social studies). We would love your help in spreading the word so that we can find great teachers to work with our students. Those interested in submitting an application should send a letter of intent, resume and 3 professional references to Carol DeRosier, Human Resource Analyst at carold@usdb.org.
We wish you all a happy spring and hope to see you at JMS.
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