Michigan Gov. Whitmer signs LEAD-K bill into law
Michigan’s LEAD-K Team Spokesperson Freida Morrison announced on December 22 that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the LEAD-K bill HB 5777 into law.
[Video clip] Credit: FB / LEAD-K Michigan
Freida Morrison: Hello! I’m celebrating because the governor just signed the LEAD-K bill HB 5777 today!
Alex: The bill passed the Michigan House in April. It then passed the Michigan Senate on December 7.
The law’s text says that by August 31, 2025, the state of Michigan “shall develop a resource for use by a parent or legal guardian of a child who is deaf or hard of hearing and is age 5 or younger that allows the parent or legal guardian to monitor and track the child’s expressive and receptive language acquisition and developmental stages towards English literacy.” The resources are aimed to help deaf children be “linguistically ready for kindergarten using ASL or English or both.”
There will be an advisory committee — consisting of deaf parents, Deaf education professionals, and audiologists — who will identify resources to measure children’s language development and give it to the Michigan Department of Education. The resources, after they are approved by the MDE, should be ready by August 2025 for school districts and the Michigan School for the Deaf to use them. The bill appropriates $1 million a year for this effort beginning in 2025. In 2026, the MDE will release data.
The law calls for school districts and the MSD to use the resources to track the children’s language skills. The law requires school districts or MSD to provide a written statement if a child is not meeting “the developmental milestones or progressing toward them.”
Morrison said in an interview that it took her team eight years and four attempts to pass the bill before she finally found success.
[Begin interview]
Alex: Now it’s passed. How many years did you work to pass it?
Freida Morrison: Eight years. This is the fourth bill attempt and we finally passed it.
Alex: So, that’s eight years of work with four different attempts to get through the legislature?
Freida: Yes, that’s right. I’m grateful to Dave Robertson, who is a former state senator. He worked with us and was steadfast in his support. We had discussions and learned some lessons from two years ago on how to improve. Dave still had many good friends who were legislators. He took focus on the House floor majority leader and they were good friends as well. He decided to set up a meeting with the LEAD-K team. We had a discussion and we learned that Rep. Ben Frederick, who sponsored the bill, has an autistic daughter and saw how various methods to develop her language failed until he tried sign language — his daughter picked it up. So he knew the bill should be passed for deaf and hard-of-hearing people and for those with other disabilities as well. That’s how he picked it up and we are grateful.
[Full-screen images showing LEAD-K team in various meetings]
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Alex: Did you feel like you wanted to give up? Or did people say it was not worth it and give negativity? How do you feel now?
Freida: Oh, it feels so good. Finally! I’m also excited for parents to know their children’s language development and to see facts. There are a lot of talks right now and updates and other things are in the air. But now this forces the State of Michigan to provide data and post it on its website. I think this is the first step to helping parents. It is good for deaf and hard-of-hearing children to have the appropriate language for their ages.
Alex: You’re doing this on a volunteer basis?
Freida: Yes.
Alex: You’re doing it out of passion.
Freida: Yes, for deaf children and their language.
[End interview]
Thank you for the interview, Morrison, and congratulations to the Michigan LEAD-K team.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1408348745895987
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billanalysis/House/pdf/2021-HLA-5777-6F4CA812.pdf
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/publicact/pdf/2022-PA-0256.pdf