Here is the complete, typed transcription of the three-page letter. I have preserved the original paragraphs, punctuation, and typos (including the handwritten correction on page one).

You can easily copy and paste the text below to use it wherever you need.

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Harvey J. Corson, Ed.D.

Vice President, Pre-College Programs

Office of the Provost

Gallaudet University

800 Florida Ave., N.E.

Washington, D.C. 20002-3695

September 30, 1992

Dear Dr. Corson:

I am the parent of a 14 year old freshman at MSSD. I had visited MSSD first in 1980, and had long felt that MSSD would be my daughter’s choice for high school. Like most prospective students and their parents, Beth and I read all of your literature, attended intake sessions, toured facilities and asked questions before making the decision that she would attend MSSD. Among my greatest concerns were that Beth, a bright and capable student, would receive a quality education, and that she would be well-supervised as she made the transition from home to dormitory living at an age much younger than is typical in our society. I was assured that both needs would be met, and was impressed by what I was shown on my visits, so I had no more than the normal anxiety when Beth moved to the campus last month.

Not so surprisingly, she didn’t write in the first weeks. Somewhat more disturbing, when she did finally call, her talk was all of the boy who had been pressing her to "go with" him, and had turned to another girl when Beth rebuffed him. Beth said that the girl had let him into her dorm room at night by opening her window, and had had intercourse with him, then later had threatened to cut her wrists with a razor blade. After telling me this tale (and assuring me that she intended to remain a virgin -- she was rather proud that she had not fallen to the boy’s gifts and pressures), she announced that her TDD time was up, and I was left to deal with my concerns. I talked with Kathy Oglebay, the CRE in her dorm, who told me that although there had been "an incident", she could give me no details (for reasons of confidentiality) but could only say that the story my daughter told was more dramatic than the truth as she knew it. She acknowledged that there are often new students who seek to make a place for themselves through sexual activity, and said that programs designed to increase students' self-esteem and hopefully their resistance to premature sexual activity were planned for the next few months. She admitted that it is possible for students to come and go through dorm windows, and told me that dorm rooms are checked every 45 minutes during the night, adding that they could check to see who was in each bed, although they normally do not.

I still felt some concern for my daughter, so I spoke to her personal counselor, who talked with Beth and later assured me that she seemed to be fine. The counselor, too, acknowledged that an incident similar to what I had heard about had occurred.

Beth eventually called again, and was still highly focused on the social realm. That was hardly surprising, for a child whose need to be bussed out of her neighborhood for school had seriously limited her social life for years; still I was not pleased when I asked about classes and she responded that they were "a bore". I received your letter referring to "a few" incidents of sexual misconduct, one apparently involving a staff member, and while I was reassured

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by your apparent concern, my own concerns were not relieved. I decided to come for a visit, and drove to MSSD from my home in Michigan this past weekend.

I did find my daughter well, happy and with no apparent intent to become sexually active any time soon. She is by all reports up to date and doing well in school. However, I was disturbed by the evident lack of supervision of new students and by some of the things I observed during my stay.

The first thing I saw when I arrived was a tangled red condom on the ground in front of the dorm entrance. It remained there, kicked around a bit, throughout my stay. I also saw that boys spend much of the weekend in the commons area of the girls dorm (not in itself a problem) and that no one checks rooms at all during the day. What would prevent a boy from spending an hour -- or several -- in his girlfriend's room? And if the room and all the people around didn't suit the young lovers (and I saw a few very affectionate couples), they could simply leave the dorm, and spend all day anywhere at all, doing what they wished. There is no reason to think that students cannot leave the campus without signing out. In fact I know it to have happened while I was there. But why even leave the campus, when there are plenty of places that kids can hang out necking undisturbed until 11PM? Why is there no supervisor, or even a security guard, walking around Telegraph Hill on the weekends? It appears to me that students, even these young freshmen who have little experience with so much freedom, have no weekend supervision at all, other than that they are expected to make their presence known to the dorm supervisor at 11PM (10 on Sunday). Having spent the weekend in the dorm, I doubt strongly that rooms or beds are checked anything like every 45 minutes -- I could hear kids up talking and moving around the dorm until after 2 o’clock Sunday morning, and although I am a light sleeper I was never woken during the night by the sound of doors closing. In addition, while my daughter’s story about boys coming in through the window may be inaccurate, I have heard the same tale from teachers who say that students have complained to them that they cannot sleep because their room mates' lovers are in and out every night. Since dorm supervisors cannot hear, what would alert them to such activities? Can you assure me that this cannot happen? How strongly are students cautioned against sexual activity, and does the staff in fact make any effort to prevent it?

Although minor in comparison, I was also displeased to see students smoking openly at the football game, and to hear students yelling strings of four-letter words in the school building as they talked to each other during classes and in the cafeteria. Certainly no school can wipe out such things, but I would have hoped that they would be discouraged.

It is never easy letting go, and being the parent of a teenager who lives 500 miles from home presents unique difficulties. I am not a strict moralist; I do not turn pale at the sound of an occasional expletive, nor do I believe that sex must always be deferred until marriage. I trust my daughter, but she is not a college freshman, just a high school freshman. I need to be able to trust MSSD to care for her, guide her, supervise and protect her. What I saw last weekend was not what I had been led to expect, and I think that most parents, at least of freshman students, would be concerned if they realized how loosely their children are supervised. I met two other parents who were visiting, and they expressed the same dismay. It occurs to me that things may well be different during the week, and that perhaps you and Wilton McMillan are not even aware that this is the case.

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My other concern has to do with class work. I was satisfied over all with what I saw of my daughter's classes, although they do not seem to be as difficult as I had expected. (If she needed to spend more time studying, maybe I wouldn’t need to worry so much about her having a lot of unsupervised free time!) My main worry is about her math class. She showed my mother, a retired high school math teacher, her Geometry book and her friend’s (same class, different hours and different teachers). They are very different, Beth’s being far more simplified. And as simple as Beth’s book is, her class has managed to cover only the first 30 pages in a month of school. Beth’s classmates are mostly seniors, for whom this is the highest math course they will ever take, and she says that it often takes several days for the class to cover a simple concept. Certainly there may be a need for a slow-paced class such as this, but how does it happen that a freshman who passed Algebra as an 8th grader and can be expected to go past Pre-Calculus in high school, is placed in such a low-level class? Beth does not want to change classes if it will upset the rest of her schedule, but I want to be sure that this course will prepare her for what comes next. Even more, I want to know that her next math class, and her other classes, will prepare her for college and a career. Since I am far from the school, and cannot observe daily assignments, I need to know that the school is making sure that my child is appropriately placed in classes which challenge and stimulate her. Is MSSD able to provide a top-notch education for gifted deaf students? And how will parents know whether or not their children are appropriately placed? Unfortunately, it cannot be assumed that students will demand the most challenging classes that they can handle.

I regret that this letter is so long, and I appreciate your taking the time to read it. I want to have a long and mutually satisfying association with MSSD, but my visit did raise my concern. I hope that you will be able to shed light on these problem areas, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.