Jonesboro High students to compete in regional Academic Bowl

The classroom was quiet, but Brittany Willis still got called out for talking during study time.

Her hands frantically moved, signing to a fellow deaf teammate before her coach pointed out the mistake.

“I forgot,” the Jonesboro High School senior signed to her coach on a recent afternoon and returned to the question in front of her.

Four Jonesboro students are spending their free time quizzing each other as they prepare for a regional academic bowl.

But geometry and presidential history aren’t the only stumbling blocks in this competition. The biggest challenge: hearing.

Two of the teammates are deaf and communicate only through sign language. The other two, who are hard of hearing, can talk and are learning to sign.

“It’s helping me bring my grades up because we have to study for the competition,” said sophomore Bennie Hurt, who wears a hearing aid in each ear.

The four students will travel to North Carolina to compete Thursday through Sunday against 15 other teams in the regional Academic Bowl for Deaf and Hard of Hearing High School Students. Many of them come from deaf schools and have the advantage of not having to use interpreters in the classroom like the Jonesboro students.

“I’m trying to teach them it’s not about the competition, but about the association,” said Rosalyn Livsey, the team’s coach and an interpreter at Jonesboro. “They don’t see other deaf students and adults.”

Jonesboro serves as the high school for all Clayton County students with hearing problems.

The competition, which is sponsored by Gallaudet University in Washington — a college for deaf students, also showcases jobs for the deaf.

About once a week, the Jonesboro students gather after school to practice. They read the questions from a computer screen, race to ring a buzzer and then write down their answers. The questions include everything from math and literature to current events and deaf culture.

For the students, it’s the only chance they have to be with students just like them.

Throughout the day, the deaf students attend regular classes at Jonesboro. An interpreter signs the teachers’ lessons to students.

As for lunch and the hallways, the students are on their own, left to communicate with hundreds of high school students who can’t understand them.

“The whole purpose of mainstreaming them is to get them used to the real world,” Livsey said.

Sophomore Wiseline Desir, 15, said she is tired of the dozens of boys who write her notes and send flirtatious text messages. Some of the ones she has rejected have since joined the school’s sign language club and are trying to get a date by communicating better.

Last year, the Jonesboro team placed fourth. The students are determined to get first or second at the regional competition, which earns them a free trip to the national championship in Washington.

For 17-year-old DéJanée Vazquez, the competition will also allow her to test her signing.

Vazquez, who can speak, never thought she would need to learn sign language until a few years ago when she was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, a disease that destroys a person’s hearing and sight.

The junior, who has a hearing aid surgically implanted in her skull, is now learning Braille and how to walk with a cane.

“It’s hard with my friends. They get real close to my ear and shout. I just want to slap them,” Vazquez said. “They don’t understand.”

Hurt, 16, said the team helps provide a sanctuary from the mean comments from classmates. “People would laugh at me and pick on me all the time in middle school,” he said. “I learned how to deal with it.”