Ramos finds new home in Arizona

From: Twin Falls Times-News, ID - Feb 13, 2005

By Karin Kowalski
Times-News writer

MESA, Ariz. -- A controversial former superintendent of the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind, Angel Ramos, is still working on a deaf education computer program, but he is doing it from Arizona.

Ramos is working with the Sequoia School for the Deaf, a charter school in Mesa, Ariz., to film lessons for the OptiSchool, a set of online sign language lessons that will include text and voice in English and Spanish.

Ramos began that project while still working at the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind, and he was criticized by parents and state officials for devoting staff time to something they considered unnecessary for the Gooding school. Ramos contended that no other program would do for Gooding students what he believed OptiSchool would.

Ramos moved to Arizona in late January and said via e-mail that the move will help him work closer with the Sequoia school and search for a job.

After reaching a settlement with the State Board of Education in June, Ramos received $150,000 and ownership of the partially developed OptiSchool program in exchange for resigning from his position in Gooding.

Part of the money has gone into the Angel Ramos Foundation, set up to run OptiSchool. Ramos is the executive director and has four employees. Ramos said the computer structure of the program is expected to be done next month, then individual lessons can be posted online

Copyright © 2005, Lee Publications Inc.