Consultants hired after arrests involving school for deaf

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 following 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," state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said in a news release.

Dr. Alan Cohen, medical director and founder of the National Deaf Academy in Florida, will serve as the lead consultant, said David Grubb, spokesman for the state Department of Education.

The other consultants are Reginald Redding, director at the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf, and Cynthia Ashby, director of the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, Grubb said.

The consultants will meet at the school in June, said Virginia Beridon, interim director of the state's Special School District.

The details of the consultants' contracts are being worked out, Beridon said, and they will be funded 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, were arrested on counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile.

Pastorek plans to give parents a chance to air their concerns and suggestions at a closed-door meeting at the school Tuesday. No school officials will attend, Grubb said.

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Information from: The Advocate, http://www.2theadvocate.com

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