Although it is not outwardly noticeable, Highline Community College (HCC) has Deaf students. This may not be noticed because Deaf students look and act the same as Hearing students. There is one way to tell whether or not a student is Deaf, however, and that is to observe conversation. Depending on the student's background, it may be an oral student who has been brought up in an oral school system. An oral student can usually be identified by the accent the student has when he or she is speaking. The other way to identify a Deaf student, which is the easiest, is to observe one of many types of signing systems that are used such as Signed Exact English (SEE), Pidgin Signed English (PSE) or American Sign Language (ASL). ASL is becoming one of the leading languages used by Deaf people in America today. There is a club offered at HCC that revolves around ASL.

The American Sign Language Club at Highline is for ASL students and Deaf students. The officers of this club are Billy Alvarez (President), Dorothy Dutcher (Co-President), Cathy Williams (Secretary), and Roman Wright (Adviser). They do a lot of things that involve Deaf Culture and schedule events and activities that are related to Deafness or that would help improve ASL skills. This club meets other Thursday at HCC. They also host Silent Games Night at HCC, but the date for these varies from month to month. Their website <http://www.highline.edu/stuserv/clubs/asl/main.htm> offers many different events, contact information and general information about the Club. Besides this club there are also services available for the Deaf students on campus.

The policy at HCC, through the Access Services for students with Disabilities, is to ensure that all qualified students with disabilities receive reasonable accommodation in their admission process, programs of study and campus activities. The College is committed to providing and equal opportunity to access the benefits, rights, and privileges of the college experience. To this end, the admission processes, and well as program and activity elements will be modified in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504; and Washington State Laws of 1994, chapter 105, without compromising essential requirements.

To receive reasonable accommodations, students are responsible for requesting accommodations and for providing appropriate documentation regarding the nature and extent of their disability in a timely manner. Documentation of the disability needs to be given to the office of Access Services. If an interpreter is required it is asked that the Deaf student should submit his/her documents six weeks prior to the start of the quarter. This length of time is needed to find an interpreter that has the qualification and time to work in the student's classes. Sometimes the student is asked to provide other documentation such as medical reports, identification of tests that have been administered, test results, description of the covered disability and recommended accommodations. The reason behind this is so that the College can determine what the accommodations are that the student will need. Many students have a fear that by giving this documentation to the school, staff will find out about their disability or even worse, classmates. Confidentiality, however, binds the College, and therefore all that is shared or given to the Access Services office must be kept private. Along with the student documentation the College must provide there are also certain stipulations that they must follow.

First and foremost the College must comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 202 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, and Washington State Laws of 1994. They must also make available to all students, information on the services available to students with disabilities, and location of the program office designated by the College to coordinate such services. This information is now readily available to students through their teacher's syllabus. The college also may not ask if the student has a disability solely due to the fact that he/she is doing a pre-admission. The Access Services office has its own responsibilities.

The Office of Access Services is responsible for the coordination of services to qualified students with disabilities who may require reasonable accommodations/academic adjustments, and is committed to a reasonable approach in the identification of students with disabilities. This includes a listing of the location and information on Access Services in all major College publications. The office will keep a confidential file regarding a disability on each student who provides documentation on his/her disability(s). This file may contain an intake form, contact notes, release of information form, medical/psychological information, academic records, achievement test results, agreements for reasonable accommodation, and other pertinent information relating to the provision of services and progress of the student. This file will be kept as long as the student is enrolled at Highline Community College, and for seven years thereafter. The office of Access Services will assist and advise each qualified student with a disability, who requests accommodations under this policy, in developing plan, which identifies those reasonable accommodations appropriate for the students, and will ensure that the agreed-upon accommodations are provide.

Reasonable accommodations under this process include, but are not limited to (a) academic flexibility, such as modification of test-taking arrangements, priority registration; (b) adjustments in nonacademic services; and (c) auxiliary aids and services will make those modifications to its programs and services that (1) are necessary to ensure that they do not discriminate, or have effect of discriminating, against a qualified student with a disability based on that disability and (2) do not impose an undue burden on the College or require a fundamental alteration of essential program requirements. Appropriate academic adjustments/reasonable accommodations will be provided to qualified students with disabilities in the application process, admissions, registration, financial aid, course work, academic counseling, food services; any programs owned or operated by the College, and nonacademic programs. These are stated at <http://www.highline.ctc.edu/stuserv/access/handbook.html>.

If a Deaf student is in one of your classes and you have never worked with an interpreter or a Deaf person before, some tips that may help are to remember that the interpreter is there for both you and the Deaf student, they are there to relay the information being presented to the class, and they can also interpret meetings and conversations related to class. It is naturally instinct for a hearing person to look at the interpreter because they are speaking (using voice) but it is asked that the student speaks directly to the Deaf student and to use a normal tone in their voice. An interpreter is typically a few words behind the speaker. Give the interpreter time to finish before you ask questions to allow the deaf student to join in the discussion. Whenever possible, please permit only one person to speak at a time during group discussions. It is very difficult for an interpreter to follow several people speaking at once. It is helpful to provide copies of hangouts to the deaf student, as well as the interpreter. Allow time for people to study hangouts or overheads. A deaf person cannot watch the interpreter and study written information at the same time. Be sure that the interpreter has good lighting. If the teaching situation requires darkening the room the view slides, or films, auxiliary lighting may be necessary so that the deaf student can see the interpreter. Utilize closed-caption format whenever possible for videos. Request a closed-caption compatible television from Media Services. If the video is not available in closed-caption, study guides or transcripts may be available.