Kimberly Zulewski
Hello. My name is Kimberly Zulewski.
Heidi Condie
I am Heidi Condie.
Kimberly Zulewski
And we're both partners in crime.
Heidi Condie
Yes, we are co-workers, but friends.
Kimberly Zulewski
So I started as a Deaf Mentor back in 2005 working with families who had deaf children. I would help teach them sign language. There was a deaf boy — and this was in Cedar City — and he was fully deaf.
Most of the other families, they had some deaf access, or some sign language so that their children could go to hearing schools. But this boy had no access. He couldn't use hearing aids or cochlear implants, so we were trying to teach his family sign language, and so I became the interpreter.
And then when he would go to kindergarten, he was the only deaf student, and the school itself was like, "how are we going to teach him, because he's deaf, and how are we going to teach him to read?" And so I went back to school to get my certificate for teaching.
And then when he was in fourth grade, I got a phone call to set up a classroom, and we had another deaf student and then another student who was hard of hearing. So we pulled all of them together, and that was the first classroom for the deaf down here in 2017. And then we had Heidi's classroom.
Heidi Condie
Yeah. So I was working by myself with nine students, a mix of completely deaf and some that were just getting activated with their cochlear implants and didn't know any signs. We had some in diapers, we had some that knew how to go to the bathroom by themselves.
So I'm in the bathroom trying to, like, keep my eyes on both little groups here, and I hear "Teacher, Heidi? I think I pooped my pants." His pants are just to his ankles, and he does like this little penguin's wobble. And I'm just like, "Okay, breathe, breathe."
And it's all over this student. So I'm like, "Okay, first thing is, just get your hands washed." So he steps on the stool to wash his hands over the sink, and I had my name badge around my neck, so he's bending over to wash his hands.
And I just see my name badge swooping over his bum collecting poop as I'm trying to help him. And I'm like, throw up at this point, thinking, "Is this worth it? What am I doing?" And I think I did kind of cry a little bit.
And I think within two weeks, I went from the funniest story, probably to one of the most touching stories of one of my students.
He had just got activated with his cochlear implants, and I just kept hearing the toilet flush, over and over. So finally, I just opened the door, and he could finally hear the toilet flush, and so he was just flushing it over and over and over again. And I walked in, and his eyes just got bright.
"Teacher Heidi, I can hear it! I can hear in the bathroom!" And I just lost it at that point, and I knew that all the sacrifices, the poopy badges — it was all worth it, and it's been worth it ever since then.
I think with these students, they have so many "aha" moments, that it just makes our job so worth it to see how much they've grown and that we were part of that.
Kimberly Zulewski
I would love to establish a real school, not a portable but an actual physical building, so that we can have —
Heidi Condie
Our own kitchen, our own gym, our own PT [physical therapist], our own OT [occupational therapist], our own, deaf-blind — all those extra services that some students need —
Kimberly Zulewski
To have that environment with sign language and with full access and communication, where all of the students can really accomplish their full potential —
Heidi Condie
And know that we're letting them go into this real world and they're confident and ready to do that.
