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Advisers named in school review
Louisiana wants action after arrests at school for deaf
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Published: May 10, 2008
BATON ROUGE, La. - State education officials have chosen three consultants, including a North Carolina school director, to recommend changes at the Louisiana School for the Deaf after the arrests of five people connected to the school on indecent behavior charges.
"We're going to receive a complete assessment of the situation and take their recommendations on improving the safety of this school," Paul Pastorek, the state superintendent of education, said in a news release.
Dr. Alan Cohen, the medical director and founder of the National Deaf Academy in Florida, will serve as the lead consultant, said David Grubb, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.
The other consultants are Reginald Redding, the director at the Eastern N.C. School for the Deaf, and Cynthia Ashby, the director of the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, Grubb said.
The consultants will meet at the school in June, said Virginia Burdon, the interim director of the state's Special School District.
The details of the consultants' contracts are being worked out, Burdon said, and they will be paid for from the budgets of the deaf school and the state Education Department.
Pastorek announced plans to hire a consultant on April 16, after the arrest of a 31-year-old youth minister accused of an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old deaf school student.
Since November, four other people, three of them current or former teachers at the school, have been arrested on counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile.
Pastorek plans to give parents a chance to discuss their concerns and suggestions at a closed-door meeting at the school Tuesday.
No school officials will attend, Grubb said.
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