Students at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento are pleading with their school district to reconsider a decision to phase out American Sign Language classes.
"ASL is not just a class," Jamazenya Akens, who is enrolled in the ASL 1, told ABC10's Liz Kreutz. "It's a community. A community of people coming together."
Earlier this year, the school announced that they would phase out the sign language classes starting next year in order to add more AP courses to the school's Spanish, French and Mandarin language programs. But that shift in resources hit many students hard.
"About a week after we heard about this our teacher gave us petition papers and we took them to different classes and we had some students come back where the whole thing was filled up and running off the page for just one class," Joshua Sellard, a senior at Hiram Johnson, said. "People were upset and didn't understand why they were wanting to phase out ASL here."
For many students, ASL has opened up a new world.
"I did Spanish, I flunked it. I was not good at all," Akens said. "But I got here and I love it. 'A' student. It's just amazing."
Connie Steinman -- the students' teacher who started the ASL program 17 years ago -- said many of her students have gone on to use American Sign Language in their careers.
"They become teachers of the deaf," she said. "Some of them become interpreters at the church, or if they're a counselor they can take deaf clients."
When asked about the decision to phase out the program, Alex Barrios with the Sacramento Unified School District released this statement:
"The school made this recommendation after consulting with and receiving input from all department leads, the school’s site council, and receiving the backing of student leaders. The central issue is how to maximize resources at Hiram Johnson High School in ways that ensure all students have an equal opportunity to graduate with the greatest number of postsecondary choices from the widest array of options. While the recommendation to phase out ALS at Hiram Johnson is still in the preliminary stage of the process, this recommendation was driven by the question of how to raise student achievement for as many students as possible."
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