Rikki Poynter | I'm Deaf and I Didn't Have a 504 or IEP Growing up in School @rikkipoynter | Uploaded June 2024 | Updated October 2024, 16 minutes ago.
Watching @ChrissyMarshall_ video about IEPs and 504s had me emotional because I never had one growing up. I didn’t have access in school and life in general, really. My parents didn’t advocate for me. The audiologists didn’t do much after we couldn’t or didn’t get hearing aids at the time. No teacher, counselor, principal had ever talked to me about assistance from the school system or government. So to find out not even a decade ago about IEP and 504 for the first time was mind blowing for me.
I graduated high school with a 2.6 GPA and didn’t go to college, both for financial and accessibility reasons. I just didn’t know anything at the time and had nobody to help me. It’s one of the reasons why I do what I do, so nobody else has to go through what I did. I can only imagine how my grades would’ve been like, and how life would have turned out if I had access and help and knew how to advocate for myself.
Did you have a 504/IEP?
Video Description:
Chrissy is a young white woman with blonde hair. She is holding folders of documents. Rikki is a young white woman with brown hair. They are both using American Sign Language and speaking English at the same time.
Transcript:(In comments because I can’t pause video preview on Instagram.)
#DeafAwareness #DeafCommunity #DisabilityAwareness
Transcript:
(Chrissy) In the US, if you have a disability and you go to public education, you can either have a 504 or IEP.
(Rikki) Hey. So I also grew up mainstreamed, and I was just thinking about how I never had a 504 or an IEP. I- I never even knew what that was until I went back to my high school. And I wanted to do some public speaking at a few, you know, schools in the area. And now there’s a new principal there. Never met him before. So I was, I was talking to him. We’re having a conversation. You know, my being deaf and disabled, whatever. And he asked me. He’s like, “Oh, so you had an IEP or a 504 whatever, right?” And I was like, “What’s that?” And his mind was just blown. He was so surprised to know that I’d never had one. Never heard of one. He was like, “No, no teacher has told you about that?” No. I can only imagine how my school life would have been if I had known.
Watching @ChrissyMarshall_ video about IEPs and 504s had me emotional because I never had one growing up. I didn’t have access in school and life in general, really. My parents didn’t advocate for me. The audiologists didn’t do much after we couldn’t or didn’t get hearing aids at the time. No teacher, counselor, principal had ever talked to me about assistance from the school system or government. So to find out not even a decade ago about IEP and 504 for the first time was mind blowing for me.
I graduated high school with a 2.6 GPA and didn’t go to college, both for financial and accessibility reasons. I just didn’t know anything at the time and had nobody to help me. It’s one of the reasons why I do what I do, so nobody else has to go through what I did. I can only imagine how my grades would’ve been like, and how life would have turned out if I had access and help and knew how to advocate for myself.
Did you have a 504/IEP?
Video Description:
Chrissy is a young white woman with blonde hair. She is holding folders of documents. Rikki is a young white woman with brown hair. They are both using American Sign Language and speaking English at the same time.
Transcript:(In comments because I can’t pause video preview on Instagram.)
#DeafAwareness #DeafCommunity #DisabilityAwareness
Transcript:
(Chrissy) In the US, if you have a disability and you go to public education, you can either have a 504 or IEP.
(Rikki) Hey. So I also grew up mainstreamed, and I was just thinking about how I never had a 504 or an IEP. I- I never even knew what that was until I went back to my high school. And I wanted to do some public speaking at a few, you know, schools in the area. And now there’s a new principal there. Never met him before. So I was, I was talking to him. We’re having a conversation. You know, my being deaf and disabled, whatever. And he asked me. He’s like, “Oh, so you had an IEP or a 504 whatever, right?” And I was like, “What’s that?” And his mind was just blown. He was so surprised to know that I’d never had one. Never heard of one. He was like, “No, no teacher has told you about that?” No. I can only imagine how my school life would have been if I had known.
