A retired teacher who worked with hard of hearing students in the St. John’s area says these students deserve the same education as those who hear just fine, but she says that isn’t happening.

Colleen Moist says the situation has “gone back 50-years.”

Moist put in her notice of retirement in March after three-years of stress that she says she could no longer handle.

Following the closure of the School for the Deaf, Moist says hard of hearing and deaf students were assigned a school-based teacher of the deaf, usually for two-hours a day.

Moist told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly that is simply not enough. She questions how a child could learn a first language in only two-hours a day.

Moist says there are too many students with too many needs and not enough teachers to fill the demand. And she says her position has yet to be filled.

She says she has lobbied the NLTA and the province’s English School District, but has gotten nowhere.

Moist questions what that means for students in the future, and how they can be contributing members of society, based on the amount of education they are receiving right now.