My best guess is that the teacher told the parents to come up with a new name sign, and then the district heard about it and heard all the objections and overruled the teacher, but these articles really don't give enough details to figure all that out.

My condolences to you and your family, Theo.

Speaking of things with culture (as in diabetes doesn't have one, but Deaf certainly does)--are there detractors of SEE who feel its too much mainstreaming?

Totally unrelatedly--Jason Momoa has been cast as an evil werewolf leader in a movie called Wolves. I'm googling for details, and I find an article which includes this:

Momoa will certainly look the part as the leader of a pack of werewolves

What does that actually mean?

SEE is Signing Exact English, which is basically using English grammar with signs. (There are debates about how useful it is in an academic context, with some people saying that it helps deaf kids learn English better and others saying that it just confuses them; I haven't read enough of the studies to be able to say anything about that issue.)

Grace uses SEE because we don't know ASL and SEE means we can just sign what we say. This year, my school has an ASL teacher who I can sort of sign with but I'm sure my SEE annoys the fuck out of him.

We have had the worst blood draws ever during this trip to HospitalLand. They lost an IV on Grace less than 24 hours after placing it. Then, using that same arm last night, a phlebotomist fucked up a draw and after 3 sticks, we kicked her out. This afternoon, new phlebotomist wanted to try again, but the charge nurse said no. She tried a site on her right arm, but nothing -- it was scar tissue only from her babyhood. So instead of trying to find another one, the charge nurse did a toe-stick and pressured the blood out (the stick is like when you donate blood and they check the iron levels). It took much longer, but Grace did not fit.

Then Grace and I sat and watched the Food Network. Now I'm tired and so is she. I need to order dinner though.

Poor Gracie. I hope she doesn't have to be in too long, Kat.

Momoa will certainly look the part as the leader of a pack of werewolves

Seriously?

Speaking of things with culture (as in diabetes doesn't have one, but Deaf certainly does)--are there detractors of SEE who feel its too much mainstreaming?

Probably some. The main objections I've heard is that that it's not a natural language. ASL developed over a few centuries as Deaf people used it, and changed the way a language usually does, but SEE was invented in the 1970s or so, and there's a set way that it's supposed to be done, and there are some things that end up not making too much sense to someone who uses ASL. Like, idiomatic uses of words like "make" or "break" -- make a bed, make someone do something, break up with some, break a promise -- all get the same "make" or "break" sign in SEE, because the general rule is one word = one sign. In ASL, each of those phrases would have different signs, because they have different meanings. It ends up looking kind of weird to an ASL user, since the sign for "make" is clearly meant to represent building something, and the sign for "break" is meant to represent breaking something like a stick, and those sorts of idiomatic uses can seem nonsensical.

and those sorts of idiomatic uses can seem nonsensical.

Which is a odd kvetch because, idioms, by definition ARE nonsensical.

Kat, I'm so sorry you're going through this. Do you need anything? Can I help at all?

Be gentle with me, but would a reasonable possible subtext of "I don't see race when I look at you" be "You're not like the other black people"?

I'm not positing that it's the one and only way cheerful post-racialists are thinking, just that the latter doesn't contradict the former and just seems to fit some people...

It is possible.

It also sounds like a conversation in which it would be very easy to phrase things poorly.