In early May, TSD hosted the first-ever Deaf Austin Book Festival (DABF). 

The free, two-day event, which was open to the public, brought 20 Deaf and hard-of-hearing authors from across the country to TSD for book signing, panel discussions, and informal chats.

The festival started with high school student Jayden D. reading a letter from former First Lady Laura Bush during a school-wide assembly at the R.L. Davis Auditorium. In her message, she said, "President Bush and I appreciate the Texas School for the Deaf for all that you do to help the Deaf community learn, grow, and belong. He joins me in sending our best wishes for a successful and memorable festival."

TSD students and the public were able to meet and talk with authors and ask questions about books and authoring. The festival presented a diverse selection of written works in a variety of genres that included Deaf culture and history, sci-fi, sports, travel, magic, and comic books.  

A panel discussion on diversity titled "Seeking Authors of Color" brought together Deaf authors from the  LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. They spoke about their challenges growing up as a minority in a society where their groups were not represented in literature. 

TSD High School English students even got to showcase their literary works at the book festival with their very own booth. 

Check out the photos from the event HERE. 
 

Mad City Money returned this year, offering an interactive experience to High School seniors where they got to play the game of life. 

Posing as representatives for a variety of resources, TSD teachers and volunteers helped the seniors navigate through true-life budgets that included family status, occupation and salary, student loan debt, credit card debt, and medical insurance costs. 

In early May, middle school students were visited by a National Student Poet, Kechi Mbah. 

Kechi led a two-day workshop on poetry and ASL. The first day was focused on ASL Slam, using examples of Douglas Ridloff (Deaf slam poet) and the "trick" workshop, where students were challenged to write words associated with a place then challenged to write a slam poem about that place using none of those words. 

The next day, students focused on written poetry where they started with an interactive poetry memorization activity. Students had to come up with a movement for each line of the poem by Ted Jones titled "The Truth." 

After discussing different views of what the poem means, the students transitioned to the "Captioning the Classroom" activity (inspired by Christine Sun Kim's “Captioning the City" project), where students wrote lines of poetry on their own and pasted them around the classroom. 

The National Student Poets Program is the nation's highest honor for young poets who create original work. Five students from across the United States are selected for one year of service annually. 
 

Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS) troopers often patrol our campus. However, it was quite a surprise to see two troopers on horseback patrolling TSD. 

Troopers Salzer and Plummer and horses Caliber and Dewey rode around the campus recently. They stopped at the football field first before continuing to the new Administrative and Welcome Center (AWC), where ELC and Elementary students gathered for photos. The children were amazed to see large Clydesdale horses, as were the adults. 

TSD continues their partnership with TXDPS in keeping our campus safe. Expect to see the troopers and their horses at TSD more often in the future.

The Business Appreciation Breakfast, which celebrates local businesses who employ our students in varying CTE and ACCESS work programs returned in person this year.

The event started with students sharing presentations about their work experiences. Business partners then took the stage and thanked their students. 

Partners in attendance included: Blue Nail Cafe, Scan Mailboxes, North Lamar Goodwill, Embassy Suites Downtown, National Deaf Center at UT, CTE Culinary Arts, TSD's Robotics Lab, and TSD teachers.

Check out more photos HERE. 

TSD High School student Skyler W. has  logged quite a few miles on his biking journey.

He started bike riding around the Veloway, a 3-mile long bicycle track in Southwest Austin, when he was young. Now Skyler will be competing along with the MANOS3Nation Deaf triathlete team, many of whom are from the TSD community, in the Life Time Fitness CapTex Triathlon on Memorial Day, May 30, 2022.

Skyler will be participating in the CapTex Triathlon Sprint event, which starts at 7:50 AM. So, look for Bib 2487 and cheer for Skyler. 

If you'd like to know more about MANOS3Nation Deaf triathlete team, visit their website HERE.